Persona non grata

Flight .......................................................................................................... 64 
 
VII. OTHER FORCIBLE TRANSFERS ........................................................... 69 
February 1998: Aitaroun ............................................................................ 70 
August 1997: Chihine ................................................................................ 72 
1991: Mhaibib ............................................................................................ 73 
 
VIII.  VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AND 
HUMAN RIGHTS LAW ........................................................................... 76 
Deportations and Forcible Transfers .......................................................... 77 
Collective Punishment ............................................................................... 77 
Intimidation and Coercion ......................................................................... 78 
Torture ....................................................................................................... 78 
Forced Conscription ................................................................................... 79 
Conscription and Forced Conscription of Children ................................... 79 
 
IX. APPENDICES .............................................................................................. 81 
Appendix A ................................................................................................ 81 
Appendix B ................................................................................................ 82 
 

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1 
I.  SUMMARY 
 
“They did not allow us to take anything. It was immediate. We were out 
of the house in five minutes.” 
—Ibtisam Ghayad, expelled from the village of Sheba’ with 
her husband,  thirteen-year-old son, and nine other 
relatives in December 1998.   
 
On July 1, 1999, three residents of Israeli-occupied south Lebanon were 
expelled. Two of them were elderly: Hassan Mohammed Said, seventy-two years 
old, and Khalil Deeb Saab, sixty-five.    Lebanese daily newspapers reported the 
expulsions the next day, but Israeli dailies such as Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem 
Post did not. The two old men joined the uncounted hundreds, if not more, of 
Lebanese women, children, and men from    the occupied zone who have suffered 
a similar fate since at least 1985. This report examines the expulsion and other 
forcible transfers of Lebanese civilians from Israeli-occupied Lebanon, practices 
that violate international humanitarian law and are grave breaches of the Geneva 
Conventions. These measures have been carried out by Israel’s local auxiliary 
militia, known as the South Lebanon Army (SLA), in the occupied Lebanese 
territory. The use of expulsion as a weapon to punish the civilian population in the 
occupied zone has received scant attention in Israel and internationally during the 
two decades that it has quietly made a shambles of the lives of the men, women, 
and children forced to leave their homes and communities. Human Rights Watch 
documented cases of individuals and entire families who have been collectively 
punished by being expelled for the acts or suspected activities of their relatives. 
These  have included admitted or suspected participation in attacks on Israeli 
military personnel and installations in the zone, membership in the military wings 
of Lebanese political organizations such as Hizballah and the Amal Movement, 
refusal to cooperate with the occupation security apparatus, and desertion from or 
refusal to serve in the SLA.   
The expulsions come in the context of Israel's long occupation of part of 
southern Lebanon, and the ongoing confrontation between Israeli and SLA 
military forces and Lebanese guerrillas fighting to oust the occupiers.  
Historically, it is Lebanese territory which has been the primary stage for this 
military conflict, and it is in Lebanon where the bulk of the military activity and 
civilian casualties have occurred.  Both sides have carried out indiscriminate 
attacks on civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. Retaliatory and 
indiscriminate artillery barrages by Israeli and SLA forces, as well as attacks with 
Israeli helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, have killed and injured   hundreds of 
Lebanese civilian men, women, and children, including the shelling near the U.N. 

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2 
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon 
 
 
 
compound in Qana on April 18, 1996, that killed over one hundred  civilians.  
On the other side of the border, Israeli civilians periodically brace for and have 
been victims of Katyusha rockets fired by Lebanese guerrillas, who continue to 
use this indiscriminate weapon in illegal reprisal attacks following the killing, and 
sometimes the injury, of Lebanese civilians. Most recently, in June 1999, two 
Israeli civilians were killed in Kiryat Shemona during a rain of Katyusha rockets, 
bringing to nine the    number of Israeli civilians who have been killed since 1985 
at the border.  The rockets were fired by Hizballah guerrillas in reprisal for a 
ten-hour bombing campaign by the Israeli air force of infrastructure in Beirut and 
other parts of Lebanon, in which nine Lebanese civilians lost their lives. This 
aerial assault itself was, according to Israeli officials, a reprisal for a previous 
launch of    Katyushas into northern Israel, which Hizballah had said responded to 
Israeli/SLA attacks resulting in civilian casualties on the ground in Lebanon. 
The expulsions and other forcible transfers of Lebanese civilians from 
the occupied zone are just one of the methods that the occupation authorities 
utilize to control the civilian population in that territory and thwart the 
anti-occupation guerrilla forces. The expulsion of civilians from their homes and 
villages in the zone, like the indiscriminate attacks launched by both sides, cannot 
be justified by reference to security threats.  International humanitarian law 
categorically prohibits forcible transfers and deportations, which constitute grave 
breaches of the Geneva conventions and as such are war crimes.   
There has been little in the way of international and Israeli domestic 
attention to these violations of the laws of war taking place in south Lebanon.  
Attempts to control civilian populations through the use of torture, intimidation, 
deportation, and forcible transfer have often been rationalized as a measure of 
self-defense by an occupying power, despite its absolute prohibition in 
international law. This is hardly unique to the conflict between Israel and 
Lebanon. It is precisely the ubiquity of such actions in military conflicts that led to 
the provisions in international humanitarian law that expressly bar and make 
punishable such actions.   
 
Testimony from Expelled Lebanese Families 
Individual Lebanese and entire families have been expelled in a 
summary, arbitrary, and often cruel manner, without even the pretense of due 
process of law. The victims were forced to leave without any advance notice and, 
with extremely rare exceptions, were not permitted to bring any personal 
possessions with them. The expulsions have been harrowing personal experiences 
for the victims, who have included young children: 
 

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