Five Sick Deportees Flown to Israel

Five sick Palestinians deported by Israel in December were flown back Sunday, while nearly 400 deportees left behind staged a sit-in protest in their tent camp in frigid southern Lebanon.

An Israeli army spokesman said the Palestinians were flown by helicopter from a hospital in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon and were taken to jail after their return.

The 396 remaining deportees, dumped in an icy strip in southern Lebanon between Israeli and Lebanese front lines seven weeks ago, protested Sunday that the United Nations was ignoring their plight and the killing of six Arabs by Israel.

The five had fallen sick or were wounded shortly after Israel banished 415 Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Dec. 17.

Israel says they have links with Islamic groups that killed five Israeli soldiers in December. Israel has also taken back 14 deportees it said were expelled by mistake.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said last Monday that 101 of the remaining deportees could return, including the five who were sick. But the deportees said none of them would return until all of them could. All face detention or jail if they return.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in Jerusalem that the U.S.-brokered compromise for the return of the 101 deportees did not affect Israel’s right to expel people in the future.

“The Israeli position is very clear,” Rabin said. “As in the past, in the future this will not be the normal policy of Israel but in case of extraordinary situations.”

Security sources said that an Israeli ambulance and four other cars took the five sick deportees from Marjayoun hospital in Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone” in southern Lebanon to the helicopter for the flight back.

Abdul Aziz Rantisi, the leader of the deportees, said he believed they were forced back to Israel.

The Israeli army spokesman said they went willingly.