New Law Allows Lebanese who Fled to Israel Return Home

Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kenaan stressed on Thursday that a law facilitating the return of Lebanese who fled to Israel will be implemented on all those who went to the Jewish state, including those who joined the South Lebanon Army militia or collaborated with it.

Parliament on Wednesday approved the draft law proposed by the bloc leader MP Michel Aoun to facilitate the return of Lebanese who went to Israel after its withdrawal from the South in May 2000.

“The law is implementable on all citizens who escaped to Israel,” Kenaan stressed in remarks to An Nahar daily.

He said those who had joined the SLA can now return and face a fair trial. “Their families can return without facing any prosecution.”

The law stipulates that Lebanese who joined the SLA or collaborated with it will be arrested by the authorities on the Lebanese-Israeli border upon their return and tried under the local law.

But their families and other Lebanese who hadn’t collaborated with the Jewish state could return under certain mechanisms and regulations to be stipulated in decrees issued by the cabinet later on.

The law also stipulates that the return should take place within one year of the issuance of the decrees.

Kenaan said however that there could be some controversy on Lebanese who have been recruited in the Israeli army or are married to Israeli women.

The cases of Lebanese who have lost their identification papers and have been given Israeli passports should also be resolved, he told An Nahar.

An estimated 4,000 Lebanese reside in Israel but Lebanese authorities don’t have any specific data as some have travelled to western countries such as the U.S. and Canada in the past 11 years.

Speaker Nabih Berri hailed the parliament’s accomplishments, telling As Safir newspaper that Wednesday’s session was “productive.”

“Most of the draft laws that were on the legislature’s agenda were adopted,” he said.

MPs agreed “in principle” on a draft law also proposed by the Change and Reform bloc to pay compensations for Lebanese who were held in Syrian prisons.

But the proposal was put on the agenda of the next parliamentary session after tasking the administrative and justice committee to tackle its details.