Persona non grata

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Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon 
 
 
 
Committee, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization, between February 1987 
and January 1999 approximately 250 residents were expelled from the Arqoub 
region of  the northwestern section of the occupied zone, which includes the 
villages of  Sheba’, Kfar Hamam, Hebbariyeh, Kfar Shouba, and Rashaiya 
el-Foukar. Human Rights Watch learned that forty-six Lebanese who were 
expelled in 1998 reported their cases to local offices of the International 
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The U.S. State Department, in sharp 
contrast, noted only four cases of expulsion in its 1998 Lebanon report on human 
rights practices, involving twelve residents: five women, four children, and three 
men. For three of the four cases, the State Department did not confirm the 
expulsions but said that the victims were “reportedly” expelled.         
A    Lebanese foreign ministry official in Beirut informed Human Rights 
Watch in April 1999 that the government did not maintain comprehensive 
statistics about the expulsions, due to a lack of resources, but that it hoped to do so 
in the future.    We learned that in advance of our March-April 1999 mission the 
government sought the assistance of several small Lebanese nongovernmental 
organizations to compile data about the expellees, but this information was not 
available during the mission or by the time this report went to press. Human 
Rights Watch requested information from the Council of the South (majlis 
al-janoub, in Arabic), an arm of the state that has provided financial assistance to 
expelled families since 1996.    As this report went to press, this information had 
not been made available.   
The Council of the South is a Lebanese government institution 
established in 1970 to help residents of south Lebanon and the western Beka’ 
valley affected by Israeli actions, its director Qabalan Qabalan told Human Rights 
Watch during an interview in Beirut in April 1999. Using government funds, it 
undertakes infrastructure development and social services projects, and provides 
ongoing financial assistance to families of Lebanese held in Khiam prison or 
prisons inside Israel. The Council of the South is also the conduit for one-time 
payments of LL20 million (about US$13,300) to families whose children have 
been killed in military operations; and lump-sum and other payments to released 
prisoners. Mr. Qabalan said that in late 1996, the prime minister issued an 
administrative decree that provided for LL3 million in assistance for each 
expelled family, as well as full medical assistance for the duration of the 
expulsion. He noted that additional needs of the families are dealt with on a 
case-by-case basis and require approval of the Council of Ministers (the cabinet). 
Human Rights Watch requested a copy of the administrative decree; but as of this 
writing, it had not been made available.   
 
 
Some expelled families interviewed by Human Rights Watch 
complained about the Council of the South, and reported that its guidelines for 

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Summary 7 
 
 
 
receipt of financial assistance were unclear. In some cases, families were not 
aware of the amount of compensation that they were entitled to receive, and said 
that they had been offered lesser sums. Some said that they only received payment 
after complaining publicly in the Lebanese media.         
Several Lebanese who were expelled between 1997 and 1999 were 
reluctant to have their names published in this report because they were holding 
out hope that they would be permitted to return to their villages. Others did not 
want their names to be known because they feared    that relatives who remained 
behind in the occupied zone might be harassed. Still others expressed fear that if 
their names were published their houses in the occupied zone might be 
demolished. Throughout the report, we have indicated the cases for which Human 
Rights Watch has names on file but individuals requested anonymity, and those 
cases in which interviewees declined to supply their names. 
 
Life for Residents of the Occupied Zone 
Families opposed to the occupation who chose to continue living in the 
zone found it difficult to carry on their lives with any semblance of normality.  
Information obtained from families interviewed for this report provides glimpses 
of this harsh reality of daily life under the occupation for residents who did not 
ally themselves with Israel and the SLA, or who openly or tacitly opposed the 
occupation. For these Lebanese, there were constant reminders of the occupation: 
massively depopulated villages, harassment and pressure from SLA and Israeli 
security forces, arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement out of and back in 
to the zone, and the constant worry about relatives who were arbitrarily detained 
without charge and tortured in the occupied territory’s Khiam prison. Children 
were also detained in Khiam prison, some of them taken and held for months to 
put pressure on their parents or older siblings. Women prisoners were tortured as 
interrogators attempted to gather information from them and as occupation 
security authorities hoped to pressure male family members to join or return to the 
SLA or, because the male relatives were known or suspected members of the 
Lebanese military resistance to the occupation.       
 
In villages throughout the occupied zone, members of some families 
have been hounded for months or years to serve as informers for the ubiquitous 
security apparatus that is maintained by the occupation authorities through the 
SLA and with the participation and oversight of Israeli intelligence. For those 
men and women who refused to succumb to the pressure, expulsion has been a 
last and punishing resort. In one case described in the report, a man’s refusal to 
collaborate resulted in his own expulsion and that of his wife and two young 
children, making the punishment collective in nature. In many other cases, the 
sustained pressure that occupation security officials have applied on targeted men 

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