22
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon
apparatus”) within the SLA, employing SLA
men to gather
intelligence in the field under the professional tutelage of Israeli
experts.”
16
In 1994,
Jane’s Intelligence Review described some of the activities of this
apparatus:
The SLA is supported by the General Security Service (GSS), a
Lebanese-staffed intelligence organization under the
supervision of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet.
Having operated in the region for over 20 years and enjoying
unchallenged air
supremacy, Israeli forces have built up a
detailed intelligence picture of South Lebanon. The GSS keeps
this picture up to date and is also responsible for taking captives
to the prison camp at El-Khiam. This notorious camp is
regularly stocked with terrorist suspects as well as Lebanese
civilians taken hostage to ensure the good behavior of their
families and villages.
17
16
Ronen Bergman, “Fighting blind,”
Ha’aretz Magazine, May 14, 1999. The U.N.
also reported that “[within the Israeli-controlled area (ICA), Israeli
continued to maintain a
civil administration and security service.” Report of the Secretary-General on the United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (for the period from 16 July 1998 to 15 January 1999),
S/1999/61, January 19, 1999.
17
Andrew Rathmell, “The War in South Lebanon,”
Jane’s Intelligence Review,
April 1, 1994.
The Occupied Zone: An Overview
23
David Hirst, the veteran Beirut-based correspondent for the
Guardian
(London), described the Lebanese GSS as “the local extension of Israel’s Shin
Beth.” A senior Lebanese foreign ministry source told Human Rights Watch that
the Lebanese intelligence operatives comprise the “elite” of the SLA, adding that
the Lebanese government has proof, in the
form of taped intercepted
conversations, that the operatives receive orders from Israeli intelligence.
18
During a visit to the occupied zone, journalist Hirst interviewed one Lebanese
GSS agent who said that his monthly salary was $1,200, approximately double
that of SLA conscript soldiers, one quantitative indicator of a higher status.
19
The Lebanese security agents who have monitored and harassed civilian residents
of the occupied zone, summoned them for interrogation,
pressured them to serve
as informers, and carried out expulsions, are almost certainly members of the
Lebanese GSS, although former local residents interviewed by Human Rights
Watch identified them only as “security” with the SLA and never used the full
organizational name. In their testimony, however, these
residents always
distinguished between the individuals that they described as security operatives
and ordinary SLA soldiers.
Actions of Israeli Intelligence Officers
18
Human Rights Watch interview, Washington, D.C., May 1999.
19
David Hirst,
Guardian, March 13, 1999.
24
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon
As the testimony in this report makes clear,
one of the activities of the
occupation security apparatus has been to identify and recruit Lebanese men
and women who live inside the zone to serve as informers and gather information
about the Lebanese military resistance to the Israeli occupation. Those who have
resisted the pressure to collaborate have either fled the zone or have been
expelled. The search for intelligence information, and the corresponding pressure
on the civilian population, takes place in the context of growing uneasiness within
the ranks of the SLA concerning their fate in Lebanon after
an Israeli withdrawal
from the zone, increasing desertions of both SLA soldiers and security operatives,
and Israeli suspicions that serious intelligence breaches may have facilitated the
killing of its own forces in Lebanon.
20
By Lebanese and Western accounts, the
armed wing of Hizballah, in particular, has made major advances in its own
intelligence-gathering, beginning in 1995-96. David Gardner, the respected
Middle
East editor of the Financial Times, noted this:
Hizbollah’s ability to identify and attack vital Israeli
occupation targets has been evident since roughly October
1995. It was then that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began
noticing a qualitative change in the Shi’ite movement’s tactics
— in particular its ability to anticipate the movements of senior
Israeli intelligence officers and elite units.
21
20
Just after midnight on September 5, 1997, for example, twelve Israeli soldiers
with the Naval Commando Unit were killed when Lebanese guerrillas ambushed them
inside Lebanon, where they were carrying out what the IDF termed “an initiated
action” — meaning a commando raid —
north of the occupied zone, near Insariyyeh
along the Lebanese coast.
21
David Gardner, “Hizbollah sharpens up its tactics,”
Financial Times
(London), March 2, 1999.