The Red Cross in the Service of Palestine

The correspondent of "The Woman's Voice" paid a visit to the office of the Red Cross in Beirut and was shown a summary of the work of this humanitarian institution on behalf of the Palestinian refugees. We are pleased to publish this information, offering our deepest thanks and appreciation to the ladies who serve with devotion and conviction.

The Lebanese Red Cross Society is cooperating with the permanent Palestine Office in aiding and sheltering our brothers the Palestinian refugees and in easing all matters for them.

The effective work of these women's committees began shortly before the battle of Haifa. The central president, Mrs. de Freige, and the vice-president, the wife of Riad Bey al-Solh, together with a number of ladies and members of the Red Cross, kindly visited the region of Tyre and Sidon, where the refugees had massed and crowded together. Their appearance was enough to break the heart, and they found consolation in the tenderness of these ladies, who set to work with their own hands: they cleansed the refugees, gave them full baths, dressed them in clean clothes, and distributed food and soap among them. The ladies of the Red Cross continued their visits, afterwards calling on the refugees in the quarantine station in Beirut and in the Kfarshima refuge, the Deir al-Mukhalles refuge, Father Qortbawi's refuge, and the Dbayeh refuge. Clothing, soap, and food were distributed with generosity, joined with words of welcome and kindness, which somewhat calmed the terror of these refugees, whose hearts were flooded with dread and with the deepest grief.

As for the clothing, soap, and food that were distributed, and are still being distributed, to the refugees, they were collected from the population through the energy of committees of students of the institutions of higher learning, headed by the ladies; the task of packing and distributing them was entrusted to the Red Cross Society. What had been collected up to the beginning of May amounted to the following:

16,775 — the total of pieces of clothing and footwear.

192 tins of milk

51 sacks of the large size — food and soap

What most drew the attention of the Red Cross committees, as a matter deserving the whole of their concern, was the nursing infants in the quarantine station and outside it. Two registered nurses were assigned to them, attending constantly to the performance of this task in the most exacting fashion—boiling the milk and sterilizing the bottles—so that these unfortunate children should not be afflicted with more than the sickness, deprivation, and misery that have already befallen them.

And because of the expansion of the Red Cross's work, and out of care to remain alert to all the emergencies arising from the present situation, the Red Cross board decided to make the official working hours from seven in the morning until ten at night, so that the administration might give its directions in good time. Every morning and evening the central president, Mrs. de Freige, accompanied by the vice-president, the wife of Riad Bey al-Solh, passes by the office to oversee the course of affairs at close hand and to inspect the work.

As for the additional projects that the Red Cross Society has carried out for the sake of the Palestinian refugees, they are:

1 — It established a permanent dispensary in the quarantine station to treat the sick and wounded residing there.

2 — It converted the dispensary of the Sidon branch into a hospital to which the wounded and the sick may turn.

3 — It established a hospital in Acre for the relief of the Arab wounded; this was accomplished at the most critical moments of the fighting, and the mission dispatched from Lebanon was under the leadership of the noble lady Mrs. Evelyne Bustros.

4 — The mobile dispensary attached to the Red Cross makes organized rounds to vaccinate the refugees and furnish them with the necessary medical aid.

5 — The Lebanese Red Cross Society has repeatedly been in touch with the International Red Cross about sending relief to Palestine, and especially to the occupied areas; its request was indeed granted, and recently a number of doctors and a large number of nurses and delegates were dispatched to Palestine, where they have carried out important work in all the sectors of the front.

We congratulate this humanitarian society and all the ladies belonging to it on their activity and on the tremendous efforts being expended for the sake of our Palestinian brothers in this their catastrophe—which is our catastrophe too.