Persona non grata

44 
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon 
 
 
 
January 1999: Sheba’   
In an extraordinarily sweeping action, on January 7, 1999, twenty-five 
members of the families of five brothers — including their wives, sixty-year-old 
mother, and sixteen children between the ages of nine months and thirteen years 
old — were expelled from Sheba’.
49
 The expulsion followed the  imprisonment 
on December 27, 1998, of two of the brothers, Ismail Naba’, thirty-five, and 
Hassan, twenty-seven, both traders, in the wake of the December 26 killing of 
Ghassan Daher, the head of SLA security in Sheba’. The Lebanese press 
speculated that the killing of Daher was not a political act but was linked to a 
dispute “over sharing the spoils of the SLA-run protection racket concerning 
Sheba’s lucrative smuggling trade.”
50
  A Lebanese foreign ministry official 
expressed a similar view to Human Rights Watch.
51
     
Human Rights Watch visited the families in Shuweifat, near Beirut, in 
March 1999.    The adults and children were sharing a small two-room apartment 
that a relative had made available for their temporary use. Ten of the children 
were under the age of six. The youngest of the five brothers, twenty-five-year-old 
Qassem Naba’ — who was expelled with his wife Nawal and their six-month-old 
daughter and twenty-month-old son — described what happened: 
 
We were at home, preparing iftar [the meal that breaks the 
sunrise to sunset fast during Ramadan].  It was about 4:30. 
Three civilian cars came to each house, with three men in each 
car, SLA and Israelis. [He said that the Israelis wore military 
clothes and spoke Hebrew]. They said that all of us had to come 
with them to Hasbaiya. They gathered us with our cars at the 
entrance of Sheba’. In my car was my mother, my wife and my 
two children.  There was one security car in front of my car, 
and two cars behind me. 
 
The families were thus escorted to the security office in Hasbaiya.    “We 
stayed outside in the cold for one hour, until about 6:30,” Qassem said. “Then 
Alameddin al-Badawi and Fares al-Hamra [two senior SLA security officials] 
told my brother Ahmad that they were expelling us.    Ahmad asked why, and he 
                                                 
          49         
See Appendix B for the names and ages of the expelled family members. 
          50         
See, for example, Daily Star, January 9, 1999. 
          51         
Human Rights Watch interview, Washington, D.C., May 1999. 

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Collective Punishment 
45 
 
 
 
was hit with a Kalashnikov on his back. Then four militiamen beat him in front of 
us for five minutes. He was bleeding from his face.”
52
     
                                                 
          52         
At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit, Ahmad, twenty-eight years old, 
was reportedly still suffering from the injuries that he sustained that day.    His brother 
Qassem said that his spine had been injured and he was visiting a chiropractor twice 
weekly. 

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46 
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon 
 
 
 
The twenty-five family members were then crammed into two cars, 
including the trunks, and expelled at the Zumrayya crossing point. Qassem was 
allowed to bring his car, but four vehicles belonging to his brothers were seized.
53
   
 
In Beirut, the families received clothes, bedding, canned goods and some 
basic household furnishings from the International Committee of the Red Cross 
(ICRC), the Council of the South, Hizballah, and members of the community, but 
ongoing financial support came from one of the brothers’ uncles. At the time of 
the interview with Human Rights Watch, the standard one-time payment of LL3 
million (U.S. $2,000) that the government provides to expelled families through 
the Council of the South had not yet been paid.
54
 Qassem expressed his 
frustration at  the families’ predicament, with two brothers in prison in the 
occupied zone, and his older brother Ahmad injured: “There are twenty-four 
people
55
  living in these two rooms and we have no money. I am responsible for 
all of them. I am trying to get work in a factory, but they prefer to hire Syrians. 
Even when I get a job, how can I feed twenty-four people?” 
 
December 1998: Sheba’ 
Two middle-aged brothers, along with their wives and nine children, 
were expelled from Sheba’ in December 1998. This family’s ordeal began almost 
one year earlier, on November 22, 1997, when Muhamed Hassan Hashem, 
fifty-four, and his brother, Khalil, forty-two, were taken from their homes by SLA 
security officials Muhamed Naba’ and Ghassan Daher.
56
  “They said that the 
Israelis wanted to talk to us. They didn’t say that we were being arrested,” 
Muhamed Hashem told Human Rights Watch. 
                                                 
          53         
He said that the SLA took the keys of his brother Ismail’s 1978 Mercedes 230, 
his brother Muhamed’s 1984 Mercedes 280, and a 1980 Datsun and 1983 Nissan 
pick-up truck that belonged to his brother Hassan.   
          54         
Qassem Naba’ informed Human Rights Watch later during the mission that 
the money had finally been received from the Council of the South. 
          55         
Muhamed Naba’, one of the brothers who had been expelled, was arrested by 
Lebanese authorities after the expulsion, and was detained at the time that Human 
Rights Watch interviewed the families.   
          56         
Daher was later assassinated in December 1998, and his successor, Muhamed 
Naba’, deserted the SLA in February 1999. See “1999: A Pattern of South Lebanon 
Army Defections and Expulsions,” above, for additional information.   

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