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.
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.
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.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |