Souha Fawaz Bechara also spelled Souha Bechara or Soha Bechara (Arabic : سهى فواز بشارة) (born 1967) is a Lebanese woman who, at the age of twenty one, attempted to assassinate General Antoine Lahad of the South Lebanon Army. Lahad survived the assassination whereas Bechara was quickly arrested and held in the infamous Khiam prison, during which time she was repeatedly tortured. She was finally released in 1998, following an intense Lebanese, European, and even Israeli campaign in her favour. In 2003, her autobiography — Resistance: My Life for Lebanon — where she relates her life in Lebanon before and after the assassination, was published. In 2011, Souha Bechara published another book, translated as "I dream of a cell of cherries" which is another autobiography, as a co-author with Cosette Elias Ibrahim, a Lebanese journalist who was also detained in the Khiam prison, and who was liberated on the 22nd of May 2000, when Israel pulled out of the south of Lebanon and the South Lebanon Army forces abandoned the Khiam prison.
Parts of her story were used in the 2010 film Incendies.[1][2][3]
Contents |
Souha Bechara was born in Deir Mimas, Lebanon and raised in a Eastern Orthodox family. Her father, Fawaz Bechara, is a member of the Lebanese Communist Party, which Souha Bechara herself also joined secretly in 1982, the year in which Israel invaded Lebanon and was active within the bodies of the party, its resistance front Jammoul and also in Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth.
Souha Bechara left college in 1987 and joined militant activities in Lebanon. She was given the task of assassinating Lahad. Consequently, she headed south, introduced herself to Lahad's family as an aerobics instructor to his wife Minerva. Gradually, she familiarised herself with the family's members and visited them continually. In the evening of the operation, 17 November 1988, Lahad's wife invited Bechara for tea. Bechara accepted the invitation and stayed until Lahad's arrival. As she was packing her belongings and leaving, Bechara twice shot Lahad with a 5.45 mm revolver. He was shot once in the chest and once in the shoulder, then Bechara threw the gun away before his body guards arrested her.
Lahad was rushed to hospital and Bechara was detained by the security guards in the house. He spent eight weeks in hospital, suffering serious health complications. His left arm was paralysed.