Lebanon thwarts Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians

Troops set up blockade and order buses to return

Associated Press, Jerusalem

Lebanon thwarts Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians — San Antonio Light, 18 December 1992 — San Antonio Light · San Antonio, Texas · 18 December 1992

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Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM (AP) — Lebanese troops early today blocked a convoy of buses carrying Palestinians deported by Israel in a move to strike back at mounting violence by Muslim fundamentalists. The deportations of about 400 Palestinians, which began Thursday, drew widespread condemnation and raised fears the fragile Middle East peace process could shatter.

The Lebanese army used earthen mounds to halt the first group of six buses and ordered them to return to Israel’s self-declared ‘security zone’ in South Lebanon about 3:15 a.m. (7:15 p.m. San Antonio time Thursday), said Lebanese security sources. The Lebanese then reinforced the blockade with tanks and armored vehicles.

It was not immediately known if the Israeli-allied forces permitted the buses back into the zone. Earlier, Israel radio reported that an additional 34 fundamentalists were taken from an Israeli detention center and flown to South Lebanon. The army refused to comment on the report. Palestinians said the moves jeopardize the future of U.S.-brokered peace talks.

But Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said swift retaliation was needed to protect the Arab-Israeli negotiations from the rise of Muslim fundamentalist power. The United States regards deportations as illegal, and President Bush urged Israel to stop them. Israel radio said Washington told Jerusalem that it would not block a U.N. resolution today denouncing Israel.

A police source in the security zone said 22 buses, carrying 350 to 400 Palestinians, were in the area early today. Israel’s surrogate militia, the South Lebanon Army, took charge of the red-and-white buses in Zommaraya, on the edge of the zone. Sources in Lebanon saw this as a bid by Israel to avoid confrontation with Lebanon’s army.

The expulsions Thursday, the most sweeping since the early 1970s, were delayed for 15 hours by the Supreme Court, leaving the Palestinians in buses on the cold, rainy frontier, handcuffed, blindfolded and pounding windows in frustration.

Fundamentalists killed six Israeli troops this month in eight days, climaxing their actions this week by kidnapping and killing a border policeman. Initially, Israel singled out 418 people for two-year periods of exile.

Deportations complicate peace talks. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, echoing warnings from outraged Arab negotiators, said Thursday that Israel’s deportations of Palestinians ‘risk complicating’ the Middle East peace talks he helped orchestrate.

In Tunisia, the Palestine Liberation Organization said that Palestinian participation in peace talks with Israel will be suspended until the return of about 400 Palestinians deported to Lebanon… But the State Department said the United States ‘strongly condemns the action of deportation.’

At the United Nations, U.S. officials were attending informal consultations of the Security Council to discuss a proposed resolution ordering Israel to reverse its deportation of 383 suspected Muslim fundamentalists.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Haidar Abdel Shafi said Bush expressed anger about the deportations during his meeting with the joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation, calling them a violation of the Geneva Conventions governing international human rights. But Israeli officials said Bush barely raised the matter with them at their 20-minute meeting.”

Context added by this archive

Four hundred men deported into a country that would not take them, and left on the frontier in the cold. The number changes down the page: 418 singled out, about 400 deported, 383 in the draft resolution.

Cite this clipping

"Lebanon thwarts Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians," San Antonio Light, 18 December 1992, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1992-005. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1992-005