BEIRUT: Twenty-nine years after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Khaled Omari remembers only suffering and humiliation.

“I fled my house and went to the [mountain village] of Shanai. We suffered a lot and experienced humiliation,” Omari told The Daily Star.

“Residents of Ras al-Nabeh, Ras Beirut and all neighborhoods of the capital were forced to leave,” said Omari. “Most people fled to the mountains.”

Despite his hope that it would not happen again, Omari, who is a resident of Ras al-Nabeh, said that a new Israeli invasion would take place if the Lebanese Army did not strengthen its authority throughout Lebanon.

Similar memories were shared by a pharmacist from the same neighborhood who declined to give his name. “I remember power and water cuts. We were displaced; it was a tragedy.”

But the man voiced pride that Beirutis liberated the capital from the Israeli occupation through resistance.

“They [the Israelis] do not dare to invade Lebanon again because they are afraid of Hezbollah,” he said.

Ahmad Abadi, a Palestinian who faced the Israeli invasion alongside other Fatah fighters, recalled some battle memories.

“I was 16 back then. I first fought in Damour, then in Khalde, before retreating to Beirut,” he told The Daily Star at the Shatila refugee camp.

“I never felt afraid. We were very enthusiastic,” he said.

“We fought in the frontlines in Barbir and Ouzai. Abu Ammar [PLO chairman Yasser Arafat] used to regularly visit us to boost our morale.”

Abadi remembered a “very difficult day” during the siege of the capital when Israeli warplanes dropped a vacuum bomb on the Akar building, which was sheltering displaced people in the Sanayeh neighborhood of Beirut, in an attempt to assassinate Arafat.

“I was 50 meters away from the building … I heard nothing, but suddenly understood that the building had collapsed,” he said. “Entire families were killed. It was a very difficult day.”

But Abadi was adamant that the Israeli invasion had not achieved all its aims, despite forcing Arafat and thousands of PLO fighters to leave Lebanon.

“The invasion was aimed at uprooting Palestinians and the PLO from Lebanon, but here we are again in our camps and offices,” he said.

Kazem Hassan, a Fatah Movement official in the Shatila camp, highlighted the fact that the Israeli bombardment during the invasion primary targeted civilians.

“Shelling mainly targeted the civilians, most of casualties treated in the camp were civilians,” he said, adding that during the invasion, the camp suffered food shortages.

He said that the invasion dealt a major blow to the Palestinian resistance.

“We felt that we were uprooted and driven away from the frontline,” he said. The PLO leadership left Beirut and moved to Tunisia.

Hassan recalled seeing the bodies of many of his friends after the massacres of Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. “It was a terrible massacre … I remember seeing the bodies of my friends thrown under trucks.”

Two days after capturing Beirut, Israeli troops and their local allies massacred hundreds of unarmed Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila.

Nothing remains of the Israeli invasion in Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in the Beirut southern suburbs, and several huge posters of Arafat, and other late PLO leaders, are on display.

Sitting on a chair in his grocery store in the camp, Saleh Safadi recalled how he spent the summer of 1982 with his parents, moving from one place to another to escape of Israeli bombardment.

“When the camp was bombed, we first went to other areas in the Beirut southern suburbs, which were later shelled as well. We then settled in Basta, Burj Ab Haidar and Mazraa,” he said.

“It was a period of fear, death and destruction … our situation was extremely bad,” he said. “We never knew what fate was awaiting us.”

Safadi stressed that he was determined to return to the Palestinian town of Safad, from where his parents were displaced. “I am impatiently waiting for this moment.”