THE DETAINEES

The group of twenty-one Lebanese detainees inside Israel is almost evenly divided between those who were convicted in a criminal court and served sentences and those who were never tried. Eleven of the Lebanese detainees were tried before Israel's Lod Military Court on criminal charges after their arrest in 1986 and 1987. Sentenced to between one and-a-half and eight years' imprisonment, they served their full sentences. Bilal Dakrub and Husein Daqduq, detained respectively in February 1986 and April 1987, completed their sentences over eight years ago: no detailed reason for their continued detention has been made public.

At least ten of the eleven were initially served with deportation orders that were to be implemented on the completion of their sentences but were then canceled. For example, the deportation orders against Bilal Dakrub, Husein Daqduq, Hasan al-Hijazi, and Kamal Riziq all remained pending since the completion of their sentences on August 16, 1988 (Dakrub), October 14, 1988 (Daqduq), and August 31, 1989 (al-Hijazi and Riziq) until May 1991, when Israeli authorities canceled them and replaced them with administrative detention orders. All are currently held in Ayalon prison in Ramleh.

While all of these ten persons have now been in extended periods of administrative detention, Israel has never publicly divulged why the standard deportation orders for prisoners were not carried out in their cases. For example, in response to questions posed in the Knesset about the non-implementation of the deportation orders against Dakrub, Daqduq, al-Hijazi, and Riziq, the Israeli Minister of Police responded, in letters dated January 21, 1991, that the detainees would be refused deportation but gave no reasons. When Dakrub filed a High Court petition in December 1989 demanding implementation of his deportation order, the court deferred to the authorities' decision to continue detaining Dakrub, which was based on undisclosed security considerations.9

According to the Mandela Institute, the eleven administrative detainees who served prison terms had been sentenced on a variety of charges including military training, participation in attacks against Israeli forces in Lebanon, membership in banned organizations (such as Hizballah and the Faithful Resistance), and weapons possession.10 The prosecution and trial of these detainees, for offenses committed in Lebanon, was on the basis of domestic Israeli criminal law. Typically, charges were brought under provisions prohibiting membership in "unlawful associations," "unauthorized [military] drilling," or attacks against Israeli military or security personnel and state security.

· Ali Ammar (age 31), Ahmad Ammar (30), Hasan al-Hijazi (27), Kamal Riziq (27)11

IDF and SLA soldiers arrested the four from their home village of Mays al-Jabal in occupied south Lebanon in September 1986 and took them to Khiyam, where they were accused of military training and membershipin Hizballah. They were transferred to Israel on January 27 of the following year where the Lod Military Court convicted them and handed down sentences ranging between three and four and-a-half years in length. The deportation orders issued at the expiry of their sentences were never executed, ultimately being replaced by a series of administrative detention orders that continue to this day.

· Bilal Dakrub (33)

Seized from his home village of Tibnin by the IDF in February 1986 and taken to Israel, he was tried in Lod Military court for membership in Faithful Resistance12 and for participating in military attacks against Israeli occupation forces. After completing a two and-a-half-year sentence he was transferred to Kishon detention center. A deportation order was not implemented, and Dakrub's detention was extended under an administrative order.

· Abbas Srur (35)

Arrested by the SLA in Aita al-Sha'ab in south Lebanon in March 1987 and taken to Israel, he was presented to the Lod Military Court on charges of transporting weapons into the occupation zone from unoccupied Lebanon and possessing weapons. He served a three-year sentence. A deportation order was not implemented, and he was placed in administrative detention.

· Ahmad Srur (30), Abd al-Hasan Srur (28), Yusif Srur (28), Husein Daqduq (28)

SLA forces arrested the four in the first half of April 1987 and took them first to Khiyam detention center in south Lebanon, where they were held for twenty-four days. They were then taken to Israel where the Lod Military Court found them guilty of membership in Hizballah and sentenced them to terms of imprisonment ranging between one and-a-half and three years. The subsequent deportation orders were never implemented, and they were ultimately served with administrative detention orders.

· Muhammad Yasin (34)

Though seized in the same period as the others in this group, Yasin received the longest sentence and thus was the last to be placed under administrative detention. Arrested in February 1986 by IDF and SLA forces in Barashit village in south Lebanon, he was taken to Israel and sentenced in the Lod Military Court to eight years for membership in Hizballah and for participating in military operations against Israeli forces in south Lebanon.

The eleven Lebanese currently held long beyond the completion of their sentences are named in the chart below, which, based on the information we have received, lists their dates of arrest, dates of completion of their sentences, and the initial charges against them.

Ten others have been held in administrative detention their entire time in Israeli custody; they have never been charged or tried. Four of these prisoners were arrested in the operations to detain Sheikh Abd al-Karim Obeid and Mustafa al-Dirani, and the remaining six were arrested by a Lebanese militia in November and December 1987 and handed over to Israel sometime in 1990. Seven of the administrative detainees are currently in Ayalon prison; two others, Sheikh Obeid and Mustafa al-Dirani, are in undisclosed detention centers; and one, Ghassan al-Dirani, is reportedly held in the Ayalon prison medical center after having suffered an emotional breakdown. The ten were forcibly brought to Israel in three separate incidents.

The operation to capture Sheikh Abd al-Karim Obeid (age 44)

Israel launched its raid to capture Sheikh Obeid under the cover of a mock jet attack in the early morning hours of July 28, 1989. Helicopters carrying twenty-five Israeli commandos equipped with weapons fitted with silencers landed near Jibchit, Obeid's home village located ten miles northwest of the Israeli border. "They stormed our house and pointed a gun at me and my mother and tied us up. Then they blindfolded my father and the two others [Hashim Fahs and Ahmad Obeid] and took them away," recalled Saged, one of Obeid's five children. A villager whocame out of a nearby house to observe the operation was shot and killed.13 During the same operation Israeli commandos also captured Hashim Ahmad Fahs (age 30) and Ahmad Hikmat Obeid (30), his bodyguards.14

The "disappearance" of six detainees

Six others who have been held continuously in administrative detention were captured in Lebanon and brought to Israel sometime in 1990 and have been held without a public hearing since then. The Lebanese Forces captured these six in two separate incidents in late 1987. Two-Husein Bahij Ahmad (age 30) and Husein Rumeiti (34)-were arrested on November 16, 1987 outside of Beirut, while the other four-Ghassan al-Dirani (who is from the same extended family and village as Mustafa), Ahmad Jalloul (32), Ahmad Talib (31), and Husein Tlayis (38)-were seized on December 18, 1987 from the Gardenia while it was moored in Beirut harbor. They were accused of belonging to Hizballah and held in the Lebanese Forces intelligence center in Adonis in central Lebanon. Family visits to this group ended in mid-1990 when the Lebanese Forces informed the family members that the detainees had been transferred to an undisclosed location.

The six prisoners "disappeared" for over two years. "Requests for information from the families about the six detainees to the Israeli Government were met with a firm denial that they were being held," Amnesty International reported.15 Only after their discovery by the ICRC and pressure from Amnesty International, did an IDF spokesperson admit their presence.16 All are currently in Ayalon detention center.17

The operation to capture Mustafa al-Dirani (age 44)

Mustafa al-Dirani was seized from his home in Qasernaba in the Lebanese Beqa` Valley, fifty miles from Israeli-occupied south Lebanon, by Israeli commandos on May 21, 1994. An eyewitness, who lives in the flat directly across the hall from Mustafa al-Dirani's apartment, described to Human Rights Watch how the house was stormed by Israeli commandos that night, sometime between 2:30 and 2:45 a.m. He said that he was awakened by what he termed "a noisy crowd." He continued:

I tried to get out of the bedroom. They had already opened all the doors. They spoke with Lebanese-Palestinian accents and told us to go back to our rooms. They had masks and were wearing night-vision goggles. About fifty of them spread out in the rooms and [Dirani's] apartment. There were more of them outside, surrounding the house. About five to ten minutes later, I heard [Dirani's] wife scream that her husband had been kidnaped by Israelis.18

Zeinab Amin, the wife of Mustafa al-Dirani, told Human Rights Watch that at approximately 2:30 a.m. she was awakened by "loud voices" over the bed in which she was sleeping with her husband. "They were speaking to each other in Hebrew," she added. She said that the uniformed soldiers immediately removed her from the bedroom and brought her to her daughters' bedroom. When she asked that they identify themselves, Ms. Amin said that they told her: "We are Israelis. Do not be afraid. We will not kill your husband. Do not cry."

She said that there were scores of men inside the house, all of them dressed in military uniforms except one man who was dressed in civilian clothes. "He stood and watched me-this was his only role. The rest were soldiers," she said. She watched as five men wrestled her husband to the floor. After a few minutes, Mustafa al-Dirani made no sound or movement, leading Ms. Amin to believe that he had been given an injection. The commandos questioned Ms. Amin about the location of files, papers and weapons in the house, but she did not answer. The soldiers, carrying flashlights, divided themselves into groups and thoroughly searched the house. Ms. Amin said she was bound at the wrists and ankles with metal handcuffs that were "very tight and ate at her flesh," and that one of her daughters was hit on the head with a gun butt.

As the force left with al-Dirani, they told her that they would blow up the house. As a result, the family fled in fear, and Ms. Amin had to roll herself away from the building because her ankles were bound. She said that at the entrance to the village, her husband was placed in a Mercedes, which was accompanied by four Range Rovers. The caravan took the road toward Tamnine, which then leads into the nearby mountains. Ms. Amin also noted that there were no working telephones in the village because the lines from nearby Zahle had gone out twenty-four hours earlier.19

The chart that follows provides basic information concerning the ten administrative detainees who have never been charged or tried:

Various factors have kept the status of these twenty-one individuals and the developments in their cases largely unknown. The temporary "disappearance" and secret transfer of six detainees from the Lebanese Forces and the abiding secrecy with which the situations of Sheikh Obeid and Mustafa al-Dirani have been treated are only the most extreme cases. The proceedings in which detention orders and renewals are handed down to administrative detainees are always conducted in closed hearings, the record sealed and disclosure of details of the hearings punishable by law.

The government of Israel's response to Human Rights Watch's request for detailed information on the twenty-one Lebanese reflects the secrecy that has been the norm in these cases. No individual information was provided on any of the cases, and only information provided by the security services, rather than the courts, was released.20

9 Arab Association for Human Rights, "Update on Prisoners Held Beyond Sentence in Israel," June 15, 1991.

10 Many of the other convicted prisoners in Israeli custody attempted or carried out armed attacks against Israeli targets both in occupied south Lebanon and Israel as well. See Robert Fisk, "A Snapshot of Life Inside the Secret World of Israel's Palestinian Prisons," The Independent, May 23, 1997, p. 15.

11 The following paragraphs on the detainees and the table is based on information from the Ramallah-based Mandela Institute's "Fact Sheet: Administrative Detention under the Israeli Military Occupation," April 17, 1997 and on a Human Rights Watch/Middle East interview with Najah Duqman, Mandela Institute, Ramallah, December 30, 1996. The ages given are the ages at the time of publication of this report. The data in this list correspond substantially to data appearing in the Follow-Up Committee for the Support of the Lebanese Prisoners in the Israeli Prisons' "Memorandum Regarding the Hostages Held in Administrative Detention in Ramleh Prison," January 30, 1997. Human Rights Watch/Middle East wrote to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on February 7, 1997 requesting the legal grounds for the detention of these individuals. The government's response did not contain any details on any individual Lebanese detainee.

12 Faithful Resistance, organized by Mustafa al-Dirani, was a breakaway faction of Amal.

13 "Raid into Lebanon Defended by Israel; Leader of Iran-Backed Hezbollah Accused of Role in Terrorist Attacks," Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1989, p. 1.

14 Amnesty International, Israel/South Lebanon: Israel's Forgotten Hostages: Lebanese Detainees in Israel and Khiam Detention Centre, (AI Index: MDE 15/18/97), July 1997, p. 11.

15 Ibid., p. 9.

16 Ori Levi, "Detention of Six Lebanese Confirmed," Davar, January 24, 1992, as reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Near East and South Asia, January 24, 1992.

17 Follow-Up Committee, "Memorandum Regarding the Hostages Held in Administrative Detention in Ramleh Prison"; Follow-Up Committee for the Support of Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons, Lebanese Hostages in Israeli Prisons (Beirut: Follow-Up Committee for the Support of Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons, 1996), p. 76.

18 Human Rights Watch/Middle East interview, Qasernaba, Lebanon, August 8, 1996.

19 Ibid.

20 See Appendix B. As noted above, Israel has characterized the Lebanese detainees as "terrorists." It should be noted that Israel systematically uses this term to describe Hizballah fighters, even when referring to attacks on Israeli military targets located inside Lebanon. For example, during Operation Grapes of Wrath, the IDF spokesman issued a statement announcing: "This morning (Thursday), 18 April 1996, Hizballah terrorists attacked an IDF post at Ali Taher range, in the central sector of south Lebanon."