Israel to reject activists’ return

Press, 15 January 1988, Page 6

Israel to reject activists’ return

By

GAIL FITZER

of Reuters in Tel Aviv

Israel will reject any effort by the Lebanese Army to return four Palestinian activists expelled to Lebanon on charges of masterminding unrest in Israeli-occupied areas, Israeli security sources said yesterday.

The Lebanese Army said it would return the four Palestinians to the edge of the Israeli-declared security zone in Lebanon where Israeli troops dropped them on Wednesday, Lebanese security sources said.

"There is no special preparation for their possible return to southern Lebanon,” an Israeli source in Lebanon said. "Together with this, soldiers in the security zone have been given strict instructions not to permit their return.”

Lebanese security sources said the Lebanese Army planned to take back the four activists to the border crossing of Zemraya — the original location where Israeli troops dropped them on Wednesday.

Eyewitnesses said the four Palestinians spent the night at the barracks of the Lebanese Army’s Muslim first brigade, on the outskirts of Rashaya Al-Wadi, about 10km west of the Israeli border. Jibril Mahmoud Rajub, aged 34, Hussam Hadar, aged 26, Bashir Ahmed Khayra, aged 45, and Jamal Jabara, aged 28, were deported on Wednesday after Israel accused them of inciting riots in the Israeli-occu-pied territories. Israel plans to expel another five Palestinians.

Rajub told reporters that he and his comrades were held for six days after their arrest on December 28 in the Atlit prison in Israel along with some 3000 ’ other Palestinian prisoners.

“We were maltreated, humiliated, and physically assaulted in Atlit before being moved to another prison in Nablus,” he said.

Rajub said an Israeli commander in Nablus prison told them of the expulsion and asked them to sign certain documents.

Meanwhile, Israeli police arrested a Palestinian newspaper editor, Mr Hanna Siniora, and two other leading Arab journalists in a raid early yesterday, his newspaper said.

Mr Siniora, editor of the nationalist daily “Al Fajr,” who launched a campaign of civil disobedience against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip last week, was picked up at his home.