To Exiles’ Scorn, Israel Issues Repatriation List

Israel on Friday gave the International Red Cross a list of 101 Palestinian deportees who can now return from exile in southern Lebanon but said that most would go to detention camps for “interrogation and investigation” as suspected Islamic militants.

Defense officials here stressed their determination to prevent an upsurge in violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of the men’s repatriation.

“Once they return, they will go back to the detention camps from which they were removed,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Oded Ben-Ami. “After interrogation and investigation, a decision will be made on what will be the next step regarding each one.”

Ben-Ami acknowledged that, despite more than seven weeks of exile in a barren mountainside camp between Israeli and Lebanese lines, some of the men might not come back because of the prospect of prosecution in Israeli military courts. Others might decide to remain at the encampment out of solidarity with the nearly 300 not yet permitted to return, he said.

“Right now, it’s in their hands,” Ben-Ami said, adding that this arrangement fulfilled the Israeli commitment to the United States to allow a quarter of the deportees to return immediately. “If they choose not to, well, that’s their decision.”

The deportees, however, refused even to accept the list when a Lebanese driver pulled up in a black Mercedes to deliver it to their camp at Marj Zahour on Friday along with a letter from Israeli authorities outlining the return procedures.

“No one touched the envelopes,” Mahmoud Zahar, a physician from the Gaza Strip and deportee leader, told the British news agency Reuters. “We told him, ‘Go back to those who sent you and tell them we refuse to receive them.’ ”

Asaad Abu Samsam, the driver, said Israeli soldiers had asked him to give the envelopes to the Palestinians and had removed land mines and a sand barricade from the road to allow him through to the camp.

After their midday prayers Friday, the men chanted an oath not to return “unless all of us return together.”

Prepared by Israeli military intelligence officers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the list of 101 deportees was given Friday morning to the Red Cross, which was asked to make arrangements for the men’s return. The families of those being allowed back were being notified by the military government in the occupied territories.

Most of the 101 are “those who we felt had committed lesser offenses,” Ben-Ami said; they include 13 sick deportees examined by a Red Cross physician during visits to the camp and found to be needing hospitalization.

The men were exiled Dec. 17 for periods of up to two years in retaliation for the killing of six Israeli soldiers and policemen earlier in the month. They were accused of leading the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, another militant Muslim group, which Israel blamed for the upsurge in violence late last year in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Originally 413 in number, they became trapped in a no-man’s-land between Israeli and Lebanese lines north of Israel’s “security zone” in southern Lebanon after the Beirut government defied Israel and refused to take the men in. Seventeen of the men were allowed to leave earlier for medical treatment or because they were found to have been deported “in error.”

For nearly two months, Israel, its Arab neighbors, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the United Nations, Europe and the Bush and Clinton Administrations have all been seized with the problem of how to preserve the fragile Arab-Israeli peace negotiations in the face of Jerusalem’s refusal to repatriate the men immediately, as the U.N. Security Council demanded.

“Even if these 101 come home, the main problem remains--and that is the fate of the rest of the group,” said Hanan Ashrawi, the spokeswoman of the Palestinian delegation to the Arab-Israeli talks, adding that some deportees probably would return for “health, family and humanitarian reasons.” Israeli officials nonetheless expect family pressures on the deportees to counteract the strong solidarity in the tent encampment.

“I think it’s hard to explain to your wife or your parents or your children that you are not coming home because everyone is not coming with you,” a senior official said. “As more names are added to the list, it will get even harder.”

The compromise to which Israel agreed under U.S. pressure provides for halving the periods of exile for the remaining deportees to a maximum of one year.

Israeli officials also believe that the offer of immediate repatriation for a quarter of the deportees, albeit to detention camps and possible prosecution, will defuse international criticism and thus make possible the resumption of the Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher is planning to visit the Middle East later this month in an effort to get the negotiations restarted and wants to focus on what should be done next in the talks rather than on resolution of the deportation crisis.

Despite the U.S.-brokered compromise, the Palestinians are still balking at the resumption of peace talks without the return of all deportees.

At PLO headquarters in Tunis, executive committee member Yasser Abed-Rabho reaffirmed the movement’s demand for the deportees’ repatriation but expressed hope that the problem is now on the way toward resolution.

“We hope the deportations issue would be solved even before Christopher’s visit so discussions can concentrate then on issues related to the peace process,” Abed-Rabho said. “Implementation of the U.N. resolution calling for the return of the Palestinian deportees is the one thing which will assure the restart of the peace process.”

An aide to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had said Thursday that the talks should not be halted over the expulsions.

“The peace process is an important process; the problem of the deportees is secondary,” Bassam abu Sharif said.

Meanwhile, violence in the occupied territories continued Friday. Arab and Israeli military sources reported that Israeli troops shot and killed five Palestinians and wounded 26 in the Gaza Strip.