From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 24 Jan 93 17:38 PST
Subject: Lebanon: Putting Down Roots
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476701031:000:6134
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jan 24 17:38:00 1993


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Lebanon: Putting Down Roots

/* Written  5:37 pm  Jan 24, 1993 by hrcoord@igc.apc.org in igc:hr.eurmideast */
The Guardian Weekly - January 10, 1993

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS AMONG BARREN HILLS
by Owen Bowcott in Marj al-Zohour

"This is worse than prison," Akram Hijazy insisted, staring up at
the sunlight reflected off of the snow-topped mountains. He was
not enjoying the view.

More than two weeks after being expelled from Israel, Akram and
other Palestinian deportees - a head count conducted by the group
has found that they number 413, rather than the 415 originally
reported - have begun reconciling themselves to a long wait.

Their camp on a barren hillside in the political no-man's-land of
southern Lebanon is acquiring an air of permanence. Toilets have
been erected among the rocky outcrops. Stones have been attanged
to form steps up to the mouth of one tent, where a bearded young
man was finishing off what looked like a crazy-paving patio.

A crescent of about 60 green tents alongside a twisting mountain
road, the camp is almost invisible until one turns the last bend
on the road south from the last Lebanese checkpoint.

To the immediate south-east there is a steep boulder-strewn
descent into the valley below, where a muddy rive churns down from
the mountains. It is their only source of drinking water:
collected from the river in jerry cans and boiled.

Rubbish has begun to collect on one side of the road, just below a
point where the Palestinians kneel on clear plastic sheeting for
their prayers.

Apart from reading the Koran and taking short walks, there is
little for most of them to do. "Maybe we will be here for several
years," Akram ventured. "Prisons are better. At least there you
get to see your family every two weeks, eat regularly, and sleep
comfortably.  This is miserable."

A computer programmer from Hebron on the West Bank, Akram had been
married for just two weeks when he was arrested by the Israeli
army and accused of being a member of the Islamic organization,
Hamas.

For the next five months he was held in custody without trial.
Then, with the other alleged members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
he was handcuffed, blinfolded, and put on a bus. "There was no
food, no toilet and no water for 36 hours before we were driven
over the border," he recalled.

Breaking off from his tale he scolds a fellow exile who has turned
on a radio for some Arab music. "Save the batteries. They will
have to last," he warns.

Although the snow which blanketed the camp on hills at the
southern end of Beka's Valley has now melted, temperatures at
night plunge to minus 10C.

The supplies brought by the Red Cross when the Palestinians
first arrived are beginning to run out. To conserve their stock of
potatoes and eggs, they have decided to fast for two days each
week, taking only an evening meal. Among the tents, which are held
down by stones, wet clothes were drying in the sun. Surplus foam
rubber mattresses were piled up at one point and the entrances to
most tents were littered with wellington boots provided by the Red
Cross.

One tent has been designated the clinic. It is the only one to
have a paraffin heater. Another tent is full of cooking oil -
marked as product of the European Community - and potatoes.
Cooking is done on open fires of brushwood that has been
collected, using pots provided by the international agencies.

Local villagers smuggle in a small quantity of food, evading
Lebanese army checkpoints three-quarters of a mile to the north.
Nothing, however, has come over the Israeli border to the south
except the occasional distant, hollow echo of a rocket and
artillery gunfire.

High above the canvas tents, two Israeli jets thundered past,
spilling out a trail of flares to confuse anti-aircraft missiles.

"Even here they are still watching us," a Palestinian remarked.

Four deportees are still recovering from shrapnel injuries
received just before Christmas when a peaceful protest march on
the Israeli lines at Zamria Gate was turned back by mortar fire.

Amjed Zamel, aged 22, a car mechanic from Nablus, sat silently in
his tent, his lower face swathed in bandages.

"His lower jaw was shattered when a shell exploded near him as he
bent to pray," a friend explained. "He can't eat, only drink
liquids. He should be in hospital now."

Amjed nodded his head but made no attempt to smile.

The condition of another casualty, Zohair Lubaga, aged 26, who has
developed renal complications, is now causing more concern.

"He's losing blood and protein," explains Dr. Omar Ferwana, who
trained at St. James's Hospital in Leeds. "He needs biopsies and
to see a specialist. His condition is deteriorating."

Dr. Ferwana is one of 12 doctors in the camp. There are also 15
journalists, 17 university professors, 36 businessmen, 14
engineers, 100 Islamic clerics and scholars, and five technicians.
Thirty-nine of the Palestinians are aged over 40 and the oldest is
62.

These statistics have been assembled by Dr. Abdul Fattah
el-Awaisi, a history professor at Hebron University who completed
his PhD at Exeter University. He aims to refute Israeli
allegations that those expelled
- after the killing by Hamas followers of a Jewish border
policeman - are militant young terrorists.

"If we were members of Islamic Jihad or Hamas we would be taken to
court and put in jail," Dr. el-Awaisi maintains. "I believe Mr.
Rabin [Israel's prime minister] is following a policy of deporting
the better educated Palestinians. This is the first stage to more
expulsions." Almost everyone in the camp denied any formal
connections with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, although a small group
out walking named two men in the camp as official spokesmen for
the organizations.

Dr. Abdul Aziz Rantisi has emerged as the dominant political
figure among the deportees. He has said that the 10 Israel has
promised to allow home will make the journey only if accompanied
by Red Cross or United Nations officials.

One of those who has heard he will be allowed back is aged only
16.  Several others face imprisonment when they go back to
Israel.