Lebanese fighters happy to be home

"Everyday was the same. I would wake up, sit, and go back to bed," Mrs. Qassis says. "I didn't know the country and there was nothing to do. I was very unhappy in Israel and took antidepressant pills."

It was especially hard for her three children. Pierre, 16, attended a school for Lebanese refugees and was taught by Lebanese teachers who had also fled.

There was little interaction with local Israelis. But Pierre said that he had made some "temporary" Israeli friends.

Politics were not discussed, Pierre adds. "We talked about girls and music."

While the Israeli public generally treated them with indifference, the Israeli Arabs were openly hostile to the SLA refugees.

Zou Zou Assaf, a former SLA militia-man from the Christian border village of Rmeish, recalled attending a mass in Tar Shiha, a Maronite village in Western Galilee. "The local people didn't want us there," he says. "They smashed the windows of our cars."

Mr. Assaf was able to earn extra money from apple picking and construction work. But he missed his wife and two children, whom he had been forced to leave behind in Lebanon.

"They were too young to take with me," he says.

The yearning to go home was overwhelming for many of the families. A delegation of Dibil residents met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and offered to return to Lebanon if the Israeli government was willing to provide a reasonable cash bonus on top of the severance pay granted all ex-militiamen.

Mrs. Qassis says her husband was paid $26,000 which included his indemnity, the bonus, and an additional $2,000 per child. Assaf received a package of $41,000: $30,000 end-of-service pay and an $11,000 bonus.

Not everybody is happy, however. Najib Attieh is the only militiaman who remained behind in Dibil, unwilling to abandon his wife and seven children. He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $260 for his 14 years in the SLA. Although he received $24,000 compensation from the Israeli government, he regrets having remained in Lebanon.

"If I had run away to Israel, I would have received much more," he said.

Barred for three years from employment, Mr. Attieh is seeking to supplement his income from tobacco farming by providing a taxi service for families to visit relatives in jail outside Beirut.

"Nobody will employ me because I am classified as a traitor," he says. "The Israeli government should give us more money through the United Nations. We spilled our blood for them."

But most of the returnees are simply glad to be home. "It's worth coming back and going to prison for a while than staying in Israel away from my family," Assaf says.

It is a sentiment shared by Mrs. Qassis: "From now on, no matter what happens, we stay in our own country."

Page: 1 | 2