From: UPI
Subject: Palestinian deportees face food shortages
Reply-To: ayman@eecs.umich.edu
Organization: United Press International
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:39:57 GMT
X-Note: This article was automatically cross-posted to soc.culture.lebanon

[ Article cross-posted without permission ]
	MARJ Al ZOUHOUR, Lebanon (UPI) -- Hundreds of Palestinian deportees
faced food and water shortages Wednesday as Lebanon blocked relief
convoys to their makeshift camp near the southern border for a third
day, relief workers said.
	``They have a reserve that would last one more day,'' said a relief
worker who waited at the Lebanese checkpoint in Marj Al Zouhour. Many
other deportees suffered diarhea and stomach bleeding amid freezing
cold, relief workers said.
	Witnesses said the International Committee of the Red Cross crossed
the Lebanese checkpoint early Wednesday and evacuated two more sick
deportees to a hospital in Rashaya.
	The Israeli government expelled the more than 400 Muslim
fundamentalists a week ago in retaliation for the killing of several
policemen by the militant Islamic group Hamas.
	A United Nations official said the Red Cross and leaders of the U.N.
Interim Force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) were discussing ways to
secure the passage of relief convoys through the Israeli-occupied 
``security zone.''
	Since the deportees arrived Thursday they have been trapped between
the Lebanese army on one side at Marj Al Zouhour, and Israeli troops and
the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia on the other at Zimraya
gate.
	Lebanese soldiers Monday barred relief organizations from supplying
the deportees, arguing Israel should rescind the expulsion and take
responsibility for their welfare.
	``The deportees are present in occupied land and therefore the relief
organizations are free to supply them with all necessary accomodations --
but from the Israeli side,'' Lebanese Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz
said.
	``The area where the deportees are now is currently out of the
control of the Lebanese authorities because of the Israeli occupation.
Therefore, Israel bears the full legal responsibility,'' Boueiz said.
	Five Palestinians were wounded when Israeli troops and Southern
Lebanese militia opened fire as the deportees approached their positions
in the past two days.
	The Israeli Army later reinforced its presence in the 9-mile border
zone it controls in southern Lebanon and closed all roads leading to
Lebanese-controlled areas. Israeli paratroopers, elite infantry troops
in riot gear deployed near the Zimraya gate.
	Deportee spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantissi said an Israeli Supreme Court
decision Tuesday upholding the expulsion violated U.N. Security Council
Resolution 799, which calls for the repatriation of the Palestinians to
their homes inside the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
	``It is a violation of the Security Council Resolution and all
international norms,'' Rantissi told reporters at the entrance of his
tent. ``It also exposes the nature of the Israeli practices in the
occupied territories.''
tion
regarding the new situation emerging from the deportation,'' he said.
	Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon went on strike to condemn
the expulsion.
	Shops, schools and businesses closed in six shantytowns in the
southern port city of Tyre in response to a call by Hamas.
	Palestinians staged sit-ins in mosques and called for halting the
peace negotiations with Israel.
	``Victory for Islam and defeat for the Jews and America,'' read one
placard raised at the entrance of the Rashidieyh camp.
	Thousands of Palestinians poured out of the Palestinian camps in the
Syrian-patrolled Bekaa Valley and marched through the main highway
leading to the ancient city of Baalbeck, 52 miles east of Beirut.
	The demonstrators burned tires, shouted ``Death to Israel'' and
raised Palestinian flags and pictures of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

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