Persona non grata

The Occupied Zone: An Overview 
25 
 
 
 
Israel experienced a severe    blow, for example, on February 28, 1999,   
when the commander of the IDF Liaison Unit in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Erez 
Gerstein, was killed when his armor-plated Mercedes was blown up by a 
remote-controlled roadside bomb near Hasbaiya in the eastern sector of the 
occupied zone.
22
  The general was based at the IDF’s Lebanon headquarters in 
Marjayoun, inside the zone. In an article written before Gen. Gerstein’s death, the 
Jerusalem Post described him as the Israeli officer “with the closest contacts with 
the Israeli-financed SLA” who “supervise[d] Israeli and SLA activities in the 
security zone.”
23
 In the wake of the incident, for which Hizballah claimed 
responsibility, the Israeli press reported that Shin Bet operatives arrested 
Lebanese residents of villages in the eastern part of the zone.
24
  Future News, the 
daily English-language news service of Future Television (Beirut), noted in early 
April 1999 that “lately there has been a wave of arrests of militiamen whom 
Israeli suspected of providing Hizbollah with information enabling them to kill 
Israel’s top general in south Lebanon, Erez Gerstein.”
25
 
Testimony collected by Human Rights Watch also indicates that in some 
cases of expulsion there has been close coordination between the SLA and Israeli 
intelligence. As recently as January 1999, Israeli intelligence officers reportedly 
were present during the round-up of twenty-five members of five families who 
were expelled from Sheba’, a large village  in the northeastern sector of the 
occupied zone, where a senior SLA security official had been killed one month 
earlier. Family members told Human Rights Watch that the Israelis arrived at 
their homes in three unmarked civilian cars, accompanied by the SLA (see 
“Collective Punishment,” below). Human Rights Watch also collected 
                                                 
          22          
Killed with Gen. Gerstein were two other IDF soldiers and an Israeli 
journalist.  
   23     
Arieh O’ Sullivan, "IDF-south Lebanon liaison commander: Calls for unilateral 
pullout endanger troops,”    Jerusalem Post, June 9, 1998.    Gen. Gerstein’s post as of 
this writing was held by Brig. Gen. Binyamin Gantz.  “Lebanese Town Celebrates 
Pullout of Militia,” New York Times, June 6, 1999.   
          24         
“The Shin Bet carried out a series of detentions in villages in the eastern sector 
of the security zone in the past few days....Official sources in the Israeli defense 
establishment confirmed last night that arrests have been carried out.” Alex Fishman 
and Eytan Glickman, “More on Israeli Arrests in South Lebanon,” Yedi’ot Aharonot, 
March 22, 1999, as reported in FBIS Daily Report, FBIS-NES-1999-0322. 
          25         
Future Television (Beirut), Daily Report, April 5, 1999. 

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26 
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon 
 
 
 
testimonial evidence indicating that men and women targeted for expulsion from 
the occupied zone had previously had direct contact with Israeli intelligence. For 
example,  a middle-aged man who was expelled in February 1999 said that he 
was summoned in October 1998 to the local SLA security office for his village 
and questioned. He testified that, from there, militiamen drove him to the security 
office in Kfar Kila, a village in the ocupied zone less than three miles    from the 
Israeli border,   where he was questioned for one hour by an Israeli intelligence 
officer in his twenties who wore civilian clothes:     
 
He accused me of having relatives in the resistance and asked 
questions about them. I told him that I did not see them. I 
explained that these relatives had even sent word to me through 
women visitors [to the village] that they understood why I did 
not see them.  He called me a liar. I replied that no one had 
ever called me a liar. I told him to ask the SLA about me. I 
asked him what I did wrong. I am still wondering why they did 
this to me. 
 
The man said that in February 1999 he was summoned by a local SLA 
security official, who told him that “the Israelis” had ordered his expulsion. The 
next day, the man was transported with his wife and thirteen-year-old daughter to 
the Kfar Tebnit crossing, where their permits were confiscated and they were 
expelled.
26
   
                                                 
       
 26
    Human Rights Watch interview, Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, March 1999. The man 
did not want to provide his name, out of fear for his father who still lives in the village, 
and additional fear that his own house might be demolished. We have also withheld 
the name of his village to protect further his identity. 

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The Occupied Zone: An Overview 
27 
 
 
 
Salah (not his real name), who is in his thirties and was expelled from his 
village in the occupied zone in January 1999, told Human Rights Watch that an 
SLA security official    summoned him in December 1998 and brought him from 
the local security office to the Israeli border town of Metulla. He said that he was 
questioned there for one hour by four Israelis who spoke to him in heavily 
accented Arabic and talked with one another in Hebrew.    He said that the Israelis 
wanted to know why he was traveling frequently to Beirut, trips that he said were 
necessary because of his family’s business in the village. At the end of the 
session, according to his account, one of the Israelis instructed the militiaman: 
“Keep him until Sunday and go search his house.” When Salah was returned to 
the security office in his village, he said that he was not detained because a senior 
SLA security official told him to go home and return on Sunday with a doctor’s 
report.
27
    Salah returned as requested with the report and was again instructed to 
go home. He said that about one week to ten days later, his brother was taken to 
Metulla and questioned for two hours by Israelis:     
 
They asked him to collaborate, and he asked how.   They told 
him: “Your brother is coming and going.  He can gather 
information and tell you, and you can tell us.”   
 
Salah’s brother refused.  About ten days to two weeks later, the same 
senior SLA security official called Salah.  “He told me that I must gather my 
things and leave, that the situation was not good.”    He was summoned again to 
the village’s security office.    According to Salah’s account:   
 
I went the next day in the morning.... A SLA soldier from the 
village, who serves at the Kfar Tebnit crossing,  told me to 
come with him in a Mercedes civilian car with antennas.    I told 
him that I had my car and my keys, and said “What if you throw 
me in prison?”  He told me to give my keys to anyone in the 
office, and if my parents asked, they would  give my keys to 
them.    He said: “It’s not personal.    I was ordered to throw you 
[out] at the Kfar Tebnit crossing.”  I told him that I did not 
have my identification, my wallet, that I had nothing with me, 
and no money.    He said that he could not do anything.         
 
                                                 
          27         
He speculated that the request for a doctor’s report would enable the security 
official to justify why he had not followed the Israeli order to detain him. 

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