Israel Deports 5 Palestinians; Shiite Stronghold Bombed

Israel on Sunday deported a prominent Arab activist and four other Palestinians accused of leading the uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The deportations raised to 60 the number of Palestinians expelled from the occupied territories during the 20-month uprising against Israeli rule.

Four Palestinians were deported to Lebanon. A fifth, physicist Taysir Aruri, whose cause has been championed by international human rights groups, was expelled to France after he appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court, saying he could face death in Lebanon.

1 Guerrilla Killed

The deportations came as Israeli warplanes bombed a pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim stronghold in southeastern Lebanon, killing one guerrilla and wounding five others, police reported.

Aruri’s wife brought their three young children to Ben-Gurion Airport to see their father off. But she was removed by police after she became the center of a scuffle involving pro-Palestinian demonstrators and angry Israelis.

Aruri did not speak to reporters when he arrived in Paris. There has been speculation he was headed for Tunis, Tunisia, headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. But late Sunday, PLO sources said he could be planning to go to the United States.

The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Aruri is welcome indefinitely in France.

Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron said Sunday on Israel Army Radio that Israel will continue to deport Palestinians despite complaints by foreign governments, including the United States, and human rights groups that the action violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

None of the five Palestinians expelled Sunday faced trial or formal charges. Appeals by four of the men were rejected by the Supreme Court on Thursday, and the fifth was turned down a month earlier. The court has never overturned an army deportation order.

Aruri, 43, a physics professor at the West Bank’s Birzeit University, was named a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International. He was accused of being a member of the outlawed Palestinian Communist Party.

The army also said he was “involved in planning the uprising and a member of the uprising’s unified command.” The announcement of the four other deportations said the men “participated in leading and directing the uprising” in the West Bank.

One deportee, Mohammed Matur, was accused by the army of being a leader of Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction. The others were said to be members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist PLO group.

Arriving in Lebanon

On arrival in southern Lebanon, the four asked to be taken to bases of the Democratic Front in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanese police said.

Aruri has held meetings with Israeli peace activists. In an article printed Friday in the English-language Jerusalem Post, he urged a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

At the airport, the crowd started shouting and pushing after five demonstrators showed up with signs saying “Don’t Deport Palestinians. Talk Peace to Them.” Television crews, photographers and reporters also were pushed around by angry Israelis.

Sunday’s air raid into Lebanon was believed to be in retaliation for the Aug. 9 suicide car bomb attack carried out by the Iranian-supported Hezbollah, believed to be the umbrella organization for a number of Shiite terrorist groups.

Hezbollah, or Party of God, has said it carried out the bombing to avenge Israel’s kidnaping of a Shiite Muslim cleric, Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, one of its leaders. Israeli commandos seized Obeid in southern Lebanon on July 28.