Lebanon today refused to accept nearly 400 Palestinians expelled by Israel, leaving the weary deportees to wander between army checkpoints in a drenching rain.
The deportations on Thursday, ordered in retaliation for the slaying of an Israeli border policeman, were unprecedented in swiftness and scope and threatened the fragile Middle East peace process.Lebanese tanks and armored vehicles formed a roadblock and turned back the Palestinians after buses deposited them outside Israel's "security zone" in southern Lebanon early today. The Marj al-Zohour checkpoint is about two miles north of the zone.
When the deportees trudged back through snow to the Zommaraya gateway to re-enter the zone, the passage was closed.
Security sources on the scene said Israel's surrogate militia in the zone, the South Lebanon Army, fired over the heads of the deportees to send them away. An Israeli army spokesman in Jerusalem said no shots were fired.
The Lebanese government has denounced deportations and complained about Israel's choice of Lebanon as a place of exile.
Bernard Pfefferle of the Red Cross said in Beirut that the organization was sending food, tents, blankets, kitchen sets, stoves and medical care to the deportees.
"As long as they are stuck in a no-man's-land area, we will provide them with shelter and relief supplies," Pfefferle told the Associated Press.
He said the agency's Geneva headquarters would decide whether to evacuate the Pal-es-tin-ians.
The deportees, dressed in khaki raincoats, waited for word on their fate in the cold, muddy, rocky terrain. Many had swollen, oozing wrists after wearing handcuffs for several days.
At midday, they knelt on their raincoats and performed the noon prayers, their voices echoing across the hills and ravines as they chanted in unison, "May God shake the earth under the state of Zion."