No one in Shateela expected the ferocious attack that began on May 19, 1985 (the first day of Ramadan) launched by Amal in coordination with part of the Lebanese Army (and probably the Syrian government). There had been a series of small incidents between Shateela people and Amal cadres among their Shi'ite neighbours before the attack, but because Amal was a longtime ally of the Resistance movement, and had resisted the Israeli invasion of 1982, no one thought that these incidents could lead to such a violent explosion. People were nervous - I remember Umm Mustafa telling me in a low voice so that her husband wouldn't hear - 'Nahna khayfeen' (We're afraid). Resistance cadres tried to reassure people by saying that if indeed a battle started, it would not be allowed to continue - either the Arab states or the 'international community' would stop it. No one was prepared, no one had stocked up with supplies.¹⁷ 'The Battle of the Camps' was a ruinous conflict between people who were neighbours and had once been political allies, with a high cost in casualties to both sides, and heavy destruction of Palestinian homes. On May 30 the two small Palestinian streets in Sabra (called Da'ouk) were overrun.¹⁸ The attack wasn't confined to camps: Amal militia sought out Palestinians wherever they could find them, dragged them from their homes, and shot them on the streets. Homes on the edge of Shateela camp were totally demolished by the shelling, but the fighters used them as cover, to mount ambushes against the attackers. Civilians took refuge deeper into the heart of this tiny camp, while the fighters defended it house by house. It was one of most heroic episodes in Palestinian history, one in which a small, lightly armed group of defenders literally interposed their bodies between the attackers and their families. After this first attack ended, Umm Mustafa told me, 'None of us expected to stay alive'.¹⁹

I was so shocked by the fratricidal ferocity of this episode, that I turned aside from my thesis work to record an oral history of Shateela camp, including a history of each of the three main sieges, and of the 'internal battle' between Fateh Loyalists and Dissidents that broke out at the end of April 1988,

completing the destruction wrought by Amal. By June1988, after three years of continuous conflict and siege, Shateela camp was 90% destroyed, surrounded by Syrian and pro-Syrian checkpoints, and abandoned by all but a handful of its residents. Men like Abu Mustafa stayed, but families had all found precarious refuge in unfinished buildings in West Beirut, the bombed-out US embassy, or other camps. Going into Shateela became difficult and hazardous, because of informers and occasional shoot-outs between rival factions. Once a Syrian mukhabarat saw me photographing a group of men near the camp entrance - they hadn't been able to leave the camp for three years because of Syrian control. The agent tried to seize my camera and take the film, but I managed to destroy it. Anyone I talked to inside the camp was liable to be summoned and questioned by the pro-Syrian elements that were now in control. With most of Shateela's people outside, I sought them out in their places of refuge. Many people who remembered the beginnings of Shateela camp - founding families - already lived outside it in nearby Beirut suburbs. Though some were scared to talk to me because of the Syrian arrest campaign, most were helpful and cooperative.²⁰

By 1988, time was running out on my thesis. My interest in women and gender had grown steadily during the years of living in and out of the camps, though I didn't start out as a feminist. I turned towards the life story as research tool, and between 1988 and 1991 recorded the life stories of 18 women either born in Shateela, or who had married into it, or been besieged in it. It took as much time to find the study sample, who were different in origin, socio-economic status, age, marital status, employment history and relationship to the Resistance movement, as to carry out the long recording sessions, and was as interesting as process.²¹ The whole experience of looking for women to record with, getting to grips with categories through women perceived and categorized each other, the insights offered by the sessions when women told their life stories -- all this constituted a rich research experience. Though life stories prompted by a foreign researcher cannot be regarded as