The Occupied Zone: An Overview
19
The zone’s depopulation is one reflection of the hardships of life
under occupation and, since 1982, the dangers accompanying the ongoing
military conflict between Lebanese guerrillas (widely described in Lebanon as the
resistance, or muqawama in Arabic) and Israeli forces and SLA militiamen.
Lebanese civilians have been the primary victims in this conflict, and Israeli
civilians in northern Israel have suffered death and injury as well. Both sides —
Israel and the SLA, and Lebanese guerrilla forces, principally the military wing of
Hizballah — have violated international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by
carrying out indiscriminate attacks and illegal reprisals against civilians. Israel,
with its vastly superior military firepower, has caused by far the most civilian
casualties, and the most damage to homes and civilian infrastructure.
8
The Israeli Role in the Zone
8
According to official Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statistics, between 1985 and
1998, a total of seven Israeli civilians have been killed in the Israel-Lebanon border
area from indiscriminate attacks by Lebanese guerrillas. Two more Israeli civilians
were killed in June 1999 when Hizballah launched volleys of Katyusha rockets at
border settlements in northern Israel. Nine Lebanese were also killed in the sharp
escalation of hostilities that month, which included a ten-hour bombing campaign by
Israel on June 24-25 that targeted Lebanese infrastructure in Beirut and other locations
throughout the country. During Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon in July 1993,
code-named “Operation Accountability,” 120 Lebanese civilians were killed; another
154 Lebanese civilians lost their lives during Israel’s “Operation Grapes of Wrath” in
April 1996. See Human Rights Watch, “Operation Grapes of Wrath: The Civilian
Victims,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 9 no. 8(E), September 1997, and
Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of
Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border (New York, Human Rights Watch: May
1996). Also see Human Rights Watch, “Illegal Reprisals by Israel and Hizballah
Condemned,” press release, June 26, 1999.
20
Persona Non Grata: Expulsions of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon
The IDF Liaison Unit to Lebanon, commanded by an Israeli military
officer with the rank of brigadier general, reportedly directs Israeli and SLA
military activities in the occupied zone.
9
“We have thousands of soldiers and
officers doing the day-to-day work in Lebanon, risking their lives,” then-Israeli
defense minister Moshe Arens told the Jerusalem Post in March 1999.
10
According to the U.S. State Department, there were “approximately 2,000
Israeli army regulars” in the occupied zone in 1998, as well as 1,500 SLA
militiamen.
11
Israeli journalists, in contrast, put the number of SLA soldiers at
2,500 to 3,000 men.
12
Israel’s annual budget for the zone is reportedly U.S. $32
million, most of it used to pay the $550 to $600 average monthly salaries of SLA
soldiers, who are organized into two brigades with three territorial battalions
each.
13
9
Arieh O’Sullivan, “IDF-south Lebanon liaison commander: Calls for unilateral
pullout endanger troops,” Jerusalem Post, June 9, 1998. Israeli journalists who
have visited SLA military outposts in the occupied zone have observed SLA artillery
and mortar fire “under IDF liaison officer supervision.” See Arieh O’Sullivan and
David Rudge, “Fighting Against Time,” Jerusalem Post, July 31, 1998.
10
Arieh O’Sullivan and Amoz Asa-El, “Moshe Arens: There is no magic
solution,” Jerusalem Post, March 5, 1999.
11
U.S. State Department, Country Report on Human Rights Practices in
Lebanon for 1998.
12
See, for example, Jerusalem Post, June 9, 1998, and Yedi’ot Aharonot,
January 19, 1999.
13
O’Sullivan and Rudge, “Fighting Against Time,” Jerusalem Post. Unnamed
Israeli military sources provided these statistics to the journalists. The Jerusalem Post
reported in 1999 that the IDF has increased civilian assistance portion of the funds
allocated to the security zone to about $13 million, up from $8 million in 1998. It
noted that “[t]he additional funds are to be used for upgrading 120 kilometers of roads
throughout the zone and to improve facilities at Marjayoun and Bint J’bail hospitals.”
David Rudge, “IDF boosts funds to security zone,” Jerusalem Post, June 19, 1999.
The Occupied Zone: An Overview
21
Israel has also long maintained a multi leveled intelligence presence in
Lebanon that is involved in activities and decision making with respect to the
civilian population. This presence reportedly includes operatives from its external
intelligence services, the IDF military intelligence unit of the Army Intelligence
Branch (known by its Hebrew acronym AMAN), the Mossad, and the Israeli
domestic security service, the General Security Service (GSS) or Shabak, also
known by its former name Shin Bet.
14
In April 1999, then-defense minister
Arens provided some limited information about the nature of Israel’s role in the
zone with respect to security matters. He said that he did “not dispute that there
is cooperation in various security areas between the security establishment of the
State of Israel and the SLA, with both forces constantly facing hostile forces in
South Lebanon, and that the State of Israeli [was] interested in strengthening the
SLA in its war opposite the said hostile forces.” He added that “the parties
consult together concerning the arrest and release of people in the al-Khiam
installation,” but maintained that decisions to continue the detention of Lebanese
prisoners in Khiam are “under the responsibility and judgment of the SLA, and
not within the authority of the Respondent [the minister of defense].” The
defense minister also acknowledged that “indeed, information from the
interrogations at al-Khiam [prison] are transferred by the SLA to Israeli security
forces. In addition, several detainees underwent polygraph tests by the Israeli
side in the framework of the security cooperation between the parties.” He made
no mention, however, of the exchange of information obtained from SLA
questioning of residents of the occupied zone who were not imprisoned in Khiam,
nor did he discuss the practice of Israeli intelligence operatives’ questioning of
civilian residents of the zone, either within Lebanon or in Israel.
15
In 1989, Israel’s GSS (Shin Bet) is said to have created a security
apparatus within the SLA:
In light of the difficulties that the Army Intelligence Branch
was having in Lebanon, a decision was made in late 1989 to
ratchet Shin Bet involvement in the region up a notch. With
visions of creating an efficiently coordinated intelligence
network, the Shin Bet set up an intelligence service call
“Mabat” (an acronym for mangenon ha’bitachon — “security
14
Ronen Bergman, “Fighting blind,” Ha’aretz Magazine, May 14, 1999.
15
Suleiman Ramadan et. al. vs. The Minister of Defense, High Court of Justice
1951/99.
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