6
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
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