Mideast situation/Lebanon – Letter from Lebanon

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECURITY COUNCIL

Fifty-third session Fifty-fourth year

Agenda items 40 and 110

THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

HUMAN RIGHTS QUESTIONS

Letter dated 8 April 1999 from the Permanent Representative

of Lebanon to the United Nations addressed to the          

Secretary-General

On instructions from my Government and further to my earlier letters concerning Israel's practices in the part of Lebanon it occupies, I regret to inform you that on Tuesday, 6 April 1999, Israeli occupation forces ejected 18 residents of Shab`a from the occupied zone by way of the Zimriya crossing.  Most of them were older persons, women and children.  They were expelled as a reprisal after four members of the so-called "South Lebanon Army", which collaborates with the occupation, had fled to the liberated areas.  With this large-scale expulsion, the number of residents expelled from Shab`a since the beginning of the year has risen to 70, a number that is likely to rise further if Israeli policy remains as it is.

Israeli occupation forces recently carried out reprisals against the inhabitants of Hasbaya by subjecting them to a lengthy siege, and they have also imposed a month-long siege on Ibl al-Saqi.

In bringing to your attention these facts concerning Israeli abuse of Lebanese civilians, which is incompatible with the 1949 fourth Geneva Convention, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations and international norms, we request that the necessary efforts be made to return the deportees to their villages and to halt the abusive Israeli practices against civilians in the occupied areas.  It would appear to be most essential for the members of the Security Council, and especially its permanent members, to take an initiative with the Government of Israel with a view to ending an anomalous situation that poses a threat to the lives and security of the inhabitants of the occupied areas of Lebanon.

I request you to have this letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 40 and 110, and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Samir MOUBARAK     

Ambassador       

Permanent Representative

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