Border village drawn unwillingly into Mideast conflict

When Israeli soldiers marched over the dusty grass plain into the Syrian village of Ghajar in 1967, they found an impoverished village at the Lebanese border, inhabited by a few dozen Muslims in run-down homes.

But under 34 years of Israeli rule, the Arab village has blossomed into a haven for 2,000 residents, most of whom work or go to school in Israel, just 1-1/2 miles to the south. Purple bougainvillea and slender eucalyptus trees line streets of white-washed homes. The people of Ghajar were even granted Israeli citizenship 20 years ago when the Jewish state annexed the territory, allowing residents to vote in elections.

Until last week, Ghajar was insulated from the daily firefights between Israeli forces and Lebanese Hizbullah fighters, who successfully caused Israel to end its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

But now, this oasis-like village of Arab-Jewish harmony has been drawn into the last remaining border dispute area between Israel and Hizbullah fighters - the Shebaa Farms, just two miles away. Last week, Hizbullah fighters entered the northern perimeter of Ghajar, setting off alarms with Israeli forces, who are now thinking of erecting a fence through the village, which would cut off most of the residents.

With tensions soaring in this tinderbox region, this small patch of land could spark a wider outbreak that no one wants.

"We hope and plead ... to our Lebanese brothers not to try and cross into our village, because every single entry is going to cause us problems," says Hussein Khatib, Ghajar's mayor.

Ghajar's problems began when the Israeli army withdrew from south Lebanon last year. The United Nations drew a line - the so-called Blue Line - corresponding to the international border between Lebanon and Israel, behind which the Israeli forces were obliged to pull back to fulfill UN Security Council resolutions.

But the UN's cartographers deduced that the border between Lebanon and Israeli-occupied Syria actually ran through Ghajar. Suddenly, the Syrian village was technically split into two, with the northern two-thirds in Lebanon and the southern third in Israeli-occupied Syria. For the past year, Israeli troops have maintained a presence in southern Ghajar, but the northern "Lebanese" end is off-limits.

The UN's Blue Line through Ghajar made residents here furious. It meant the Israeli army - which is erecting an electified security fence along its 70-mile-frontier with Lebanon - could physically divide the village. That would cut off the majority of residents from their jobs and schools in Israel.

The Israeli army has described Ghajar as Israel's "soft underbelly," reflecting its concern that Hizbullah fighters might try to infiltrate the Jewish state through the unfenced village. Despite its misgivings, the Israelis chose not to split the village, in deference to the wishes of the residents.

The UN last year extracted a tacit understanding from Lebanon that the village would be left alone. For a year, the uneasy status quo remained unchanged.

Ever since 1967, Ghajar was effectively sealed off from the rest of Lebanon by a belt of minefields and an old Israeli security fence. Last week, however, a unit of UN peacekeepers redeployed from a temporary position beside a gate in the old Israeli fence, one mile east of the village.

For the first time, anyone in Lebanon could drive through the unguarded gate, turn right, and follow the mile-long road into northern Ghajar.

To the alarm of residents and the Israeli army, the first visitors to the village were Hizbullah fighters. One group planted a Hizbullah flag, and others have been seen peering south toward Israeli forces through binoculars.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said Hizbullah's entry into northern Ghajar is "a gross violation of the status quo," adding that the Jewish state would "not tolerate" such a change.

Hussein Khatib, Ghajar's mayor, says the villagers are "very afraid" that the Israeli army will change its mind and run a fence through the village if Hizbullah and other Lebanese continue visiting.

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