Where are the Palestinians
They refused to admit that the Israeli general staff and the Phalangists were of South Lebanon?
in agreement about what complete elements.
The commission was unable to ac-
One of the least-known, but certainly not the least horrible, aspects of the Israeli knowledge the fact that the reason the invasion of Lebanon concerns the vast majority of the male Palestinian population
Israeli army saw nothing out of the
Anyone who has occasion to travel in the regions of Tyre, ordinary in the massacre of women and
Sidon or Nabatye can only be amazed by the very small number of Palestinian children was the line of the Begin gov-
The refugee camps are almost only populated by women, children, and the emment.
During the war, it was the elderly. The men have practically all disappeared.
official policy of the government to
Where are the Palestinians of South Lebanon? Are they still alive? Today, portray the Palestinians as
"two-legged these questions are the main preoccupation of the Palestinian families in the animals." In short, the Kahane
•Comand a series of democratic and humanitarian organisations throughout mission was prepared to acknowledge the world, who are trying to find out what has happened to the male population the indirect responsibility of the Israeli of the Palestinian camps in South Lebanon.
government in the massacres, but not that in June 1982 the Israeli army arrested and interned nearly its complicity.
That would have meant but also a large number of Lebanese, admitting that the Israeli government
Western Europe, and North America. It is and its general staff are guilty of genoimportant to note that several hundred were medical personnel of the Palestinian cide and crimes against humanity.
Red Crescent and other known humanitarian organisations.
Nonetheless,
The suffering of these men has been widely reported in the international inquiry did not single out a scapegoat
The torture, the blows, the humiliations, the starvation, in the army, death of an undetermined number of detainees - which is without a shadow of was prepared to raise grave accusations against the government,
The Israeli authorities freed all those under 12 years old after the interventhis would unleash a serious new political tion of the International Red Cross, and after their first interrogation. Also crisis.
number of Lebanese. Since October 1982 the of the commission of inquiry coincided each week - but have been arresting others, often those with the point of view of a substantial part of the Zionist ruling class - and of
In January 1983 Israel admitted there were around 6,000 people in the the American administration. This is
El Ansar camp, and a score, including eleven women, in Israeli prisons.
that the team in office today in Israel is
Crescent and the Committee of the Families of Detainees too adventurist, and therefore dangerous in Lebanon state that more than 15,000 people have gone missing.
to the long-term interests of Zionism and
9,000 Palestinians imperialism.
of freed internees during the last six months all serves to show that about fifteen other internment camps exist, in Lebanon (Ansar B) or
In pressing Sharon to resign and in than 12,000 peMe lice Internati Sat Viewpoint Ne Deebber 13, 19307.
accepting the conclusions of the commission, Begin has chosen to main-
Israel has never admitted the existence of these camps, which no-one, not even tain the present coalition and not risk the Red Cross, has been able to visit. No-one can answer the question: How upsetting the pattern of alliances in the many prisoners are there in Israeli hands?
ruling class. But this is only a delaying
How many have been turned over to the Phalangists or Haddad's forces?
operation.
of the internees have died under torture, and above Sharon,
Over the Sabra from the beatings of the guards, of thirst and bad treatment, how many have and
Chatila condemn the massacres
While waiting for answers to these questions, one can only say that today whole policy of the
Begin government.
there are between five and ten thousand Palestinians missing.
Sharon is not altogether wrong in considering himself a scapegoat.
And even
To the number of missing persons should be added the 6,000 internees whom with him out of the government, it is his policy that would continue to be followed, both as regards Lebanon and the Palestinian question more generally.
But the support for this policy is far in South Lebanon.
men that they meet.
men in massive roundups.
ferent Arab countries, Bangladesh, a doubt more than one hundred.
seriously wounded, dozen detainees who have previously been released.
nearly of hundreds
The third question: How many of been killed and secretly buried?
tina or Chile.
Israel officially recognises to exist,
Mainly Palestinians between and others from dif most of the foreigners, and a large
Israelis have released several disappeared to?
The evidence
Atlit) some being able to hold more
The second important question is:
Just like Argenformal
Phalangists invade a Palestinian neighbourhood(DR)
A. The Association of Families of legal action in the High Court?
Question. How do you come to be representing the Palestinian internees picked up by the Israelis in Lebanon?
Answer. My experience of other, less wideranging, actions by the Israeli army in Lebanon led me to think right from the beginning that Israel was going to take a large number of prisoners. I have previously had to take up the cases of Palestinians and Lebanese picked up in military operations and brought to trial in Israel. But I should say that I was expecting a few hundred at the most, not tens of thousands.
At the beginning of the war, the question of internees was obscured behind a thick smokescreen. Nobody could get any definite information, other than that tens of thousands of men had been taken by the Israelis. At the beginning of July, representatives of several
Internees, in collaboration with other institutions, got more than 5,000 other authorisations sent to me. Some of the people these relate to are certainly at El Ansar...
Q. It is a heavy responsibility to represent thousands of internees...
A. Legal action is only one aspect of the defence of Palestinian and Lebanese internees. The essential point of the defence campaign is not our work as lawyers. It is above all a political campaign in Israel and worldwide. We don't need lawyers to say that the conditions of detention at Ansar and very likely elsewhere are atrocious. There is plenty
The main problem is that local and international public opinion does not even know of the existence of thousands of
A. First of all to get a formal status for the internees. Nobody in fact knows on what basis the Israelis are holding prisoner these thousands of people; as prisoners of war, civilian detainees? If they are civilians, the Fourth Geneva Convention, concerning the protection of civil rights, should be applied. If they are being held as prisoners of war, the Third Convention should be applied. Israel is applying neither one nor the other. There is obvious violation of international rights.
The fact is that during the session of the High Court the Prosecutor was even hesitant to admit that Israel had invaded Lebanon and occupied part of its territory. which Israel applies clauses included in the Convention, while refusing to recognise that this same Convention applies to the internees, is not only ininternational organisations and support committees for the internees asked me to take on the defence of the internees.
of eyewitness reports, to demand inde- can visit the detainees, the fact that
Q. What did you do?
A. Authorisations from the families of the internees began to trickle in, so I was able to take up their cases formally with the authorities. First of all, helped by two other Palestinian lawyers, I tried to get a formal answer from the authorities
After nearly three months of administrative harassment and false leads I finally got confirmation of detention by the Israelis, and was refused permission to visit them.
We then decided to appeal to the High Court of Justice, so that it would ask why our clients were detained, and what was their formal status; and also to get permission to visit them so that we could give them the legal help they needed.
Meanwhile you received other authorisations... 8
The primary task of all those who know what is happening at Ansar should be to publish the facts, the dozens pendent commissions of inquiry, to demand that their government raise the problem with the Israeli authorities. It's of actual concentration camps,
Q. Do you have information on this question of missing persons?
All that I can say is while Israel admits holding 6,000 people, the families state that more than 15,000 people taken by the Israelis have not returned. Where
Israel admits the existence of El Ansar. We have plenty of information on a whole series of other camps, including in Israel itself. In South Lebanon the rumour is that the Israelis sent back some of the detainees to the Phalangist militias Beirut everyone knows what that means...
What are the main points of your tolerable but factually false. that neither the families nor the lawyers some of them have been transferred to Israel and so on, are in contradiction to the Fourth Convention.
Q. What is the next stage?
A. Obviously, everything depends on the verdict of the Court, which has given the state sixty days to reply to our case. If we receive permission to see the internees we could at least know who is being held by the Israeli army, take up the most urgent cases, and get some of them freed.
But our actions as lawyers only have meaning if they are within the context of a big political campaign in support of the internees. Only international solidarity A can effectively defend the Palestinian detainees, and win the only just demand, from the point of view of right and justice: the release of the internees and closing down the concentration camps in Lebanon and Israel.