Recommendations 13
•
Raise the issue of civilian expulsions in
the occupied zone of South
Lebanon as a matter of grave concern in high-level meetings with Israeli
counterparts, such as trade and defense-related missions.
•
Urge members of Congress and parliamentarians to raise the issue of
expulsions in meetings with Israeli government officials and members of
the Knesset.
To the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Convention
•
Search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be
committed, the expulsion of Lebanese residents of the occupied zone,
and bring such persons, regardless
of their nationality, before your own
courts.
•
Take measures necessary for the suppression of all other acts in occupied
south Lebanon that are contrary to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva
Convention.
To the Government of Lebanon
•
Maintain complete and detailed files about expulsions of families and
individuals from the occupied zone, and make such information
available to the international community.
•
Instruct the Council of the South to institute fully transparent procedures
with respect to the process that it uses to provide
humanitarian assistance
to expelled families and individuals, and ensure that such assistance is
provided in a timely manner.
•
Investigate complaints about the operations of the Council of the South
to ensure that all families and individuals entitled to humanitarian
assistance received such assistance, and in the proper amount.
•
Create a transparent mechanism within the Council of Ministers to
ensure that there is effective government oversight of the operations of
the Council of the South.
14
III. THE OCCUPIED ZONE: AN OVERVIEW
“The great success of south Lebanon is the
creation of a situation of dependency,” says
a senior IDF officer in Lebanon. “That
dependency leads to a freedom of operation
and movement by the IDF. Our operations
and presence in built-up areas in south
Lebanon can only work as long as we can
control the population.”
—Jerusalem Post, July 31, 1998.
The Israeli-occupied zone, which borders Israel and comprises about 10
percent of Lebanese territory, has within it over one hundred villages and towns
that are part of Lebanon’s provincial administrative districts of Tyre, Bint Jbail,
Marjayoun, Hasbaiya, the Western Beka’, and Nabatiyeh.
1
The zone’s diverse
topography includes the coastal plain along the Mediterranean
in the southwest
and the foothills of the 2,814-meter Mount Hermon (
jebel al-shaykh, in Arabic) in
the northeast. The land yields olives, grapes, figs, pomegranates, cherries,
walnuts, wheat, vegetables, legumes, and tobacco.
1
In Lebanon, provinces (
muhafazat, in Arabic) are subdivided into
administrative districts (
aqdiya).
It is widely recognized internationally that Israel controls the occupied
zone with its own military and security forces as well as with those of its
auxiliary militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which the U.N. describes as the
Israeli Defense Forces’ “local Lebanese auxiliary,” and the U.S. Department of
State has termed Israel’s “surrogate.”
2
The zone’s current boundaries
took shape
in 1985, when the Israeli military withdrew in stages from areas of Lebanon that
its troops had occupied to the north, following Israel’s invasion of the country in
June 1982. After Israel’s invasion in March 1978, the U.N. Security Council
adopted Resolution 425, which called upon Israel “immediately to cease its
military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its
forces from all Lebanese territory.” The resolution also included the Security
Council’s decision to “establish immediately under its
authority a United Nations
interim force for Southern Lebanon [known as UNIFIL] for the purpose of
confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and
security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its
effective authority in the area, the Force to be composed of personnel drawn from
Member States.”
3
Resolution 425 was adopted on March 19, 1978.
Over twenty years later, on April 1, 1998, the Israeli Ministerial
Committee for National Security announced that Israel
was accepting Resolution
425 “so that the IDF will leave Lebanon,” and called on the Lebanese government
“to begin negotiations...to restore its effective control over territories currently
under IDF control...”
4
2
The U.S. State Department, for example, said this in 1999: “Israel exerts
control in and near its self-proclaimed `security zone’ in south
Lebanon through direct
military action and support for its surrogate, the South Lebanon Army (SLA).” U.S.
Department of State, Lebanon Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998,
February 26, 1999. In twice-yearly reports by the U.N. Secretary-General to the U.N.
Security Council on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the
Secretary-General does not name the South Lebanon Army but describes its troops as
“de facto forces” that serve as the “local Lebanese auxiliary” to the Israel Defence
Forces (IDF). See, for example, 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.
3
UNIFIL continues to operate in south Lebanon. As of December 1998, its
personnel included 4,483 troops from nine nations, assisted by fifty-one military
observers from the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), and
employed 486 civilian staff, of whom 344 were locally recruited.
4
The full text of the announcement read as follows: “The Ministerial Committee