The Hills of Sidon: Journal from South Lebanon, 1983-85

An American doctor recounts her two-years as a member of the medical team that set up and operated a hospital adjacent to a refugee camp near Israeli-occupied Sidon, one of several International Rescue Committee programs on behalf of Palestinians and displaced Lebanese. She chronicles with an eye for lively detail not only the daily operation of the facility in an area she compares to ``a bombed-out section of the South Bronx,'' but political events, harassment and disturbances that impeded the team's work. The hospital staff and patients whose portraits are deftly drawn faced constant danger and hardship with astuteness, tact and humor in order to bring healing to a community fraught with violence and despair. When, following the Israeli withdrawal, fighting between several Lebanese factions closed down the hospital, Richards helped man emergency clinics, defying U.S. State Department requests that she leave. Since her departure for New York three years ago, the hospital, despite continuing conflict, has been reopened. (June)