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2022-06-27 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Israel approves housing allowance for South Lebanon Army veterans
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[An Nahar] Israel on Sunday approved housing allowances for South Leb
 ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
Army (SLA) veterans residing in Israeli territory, providing so-called "historic justice" to former members of the militia, officials said.
The decision, passed by the government, would see some 400 former SLA fighters who did not hold commanding ranks receiving a one-off grant of 550,000 shekels (around $161,000) towards buying a home over the next four years, the Israeli army said in a statement.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz said he was "proud" of the approval, hailing it as "historic justice to those who fought shoulder to shoulder with us, and were uprooted from their homes and homeland."
The army said the grant provides "a solution for the housing shortage of around 400 families that were not properly accommodated upon their arrival in Israel," noting the assistance would be given to SLA widows too, "provided that they reside in Israel."
The SLA was formed in 1976 as a splinter from the Lebanese Army, whose ranks were divided a year after the start of the civil war. Initially it was called the Free Lebanon Army.
The conflict shifted dramatically when Israel invaded the south in 1978 to stop attacks by the Paleostine Liberation Organization (PLO) emanating from Lebanon, and the militia started taking its orders from the Israeli army, which trained, funded and supported it.
When the Israeli army withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, thousands of SLA members and their families chose to cross the border too, for fear of reprisals from the groups they once fought -- particularly Hezbollah -- and settle in Israel or elsewhere. Others stayed and faced trial, receiving lenient sentences.
Amnesia Amnesty International and other human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
groups have often accused the SLA of torturing prisoners, particularly at the notorious Khiyam Prison.
The SLA, generally commanded by Lebanese Maronite Christians, was formed during the country’s bloody civil war with training and support from Israel, which hoped to see the formation of a Lebanese government with which it could make peace. Israel and Lebanon have formally remained at war with one another since Israel’s creation in 1948.
From the mid-1980s until the summer of 2000, the Israel Defense Forces maintained outposts in southern Lebanon, dubbed collectively the Security Zone, which were there both to assist the SLA to maintain control over the region and to prevent terror groups in Lebanon from attacking northern Israel.
Following the IDF’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, thousands of SLA soldiers came to Israel for fear of persecution and reprisals from their countrymen, in large part due to the militia’s brutal tactics in southern Lebanon during that period, particularly in its notorious al-Khiam prison, where torture was rampant. Thousands more SLA members remained in Lebanon or were exiled following Israel’s chaotic withdrawal.
Sunday’s bill was jointly suggested by Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, after the IDF established a panel for addressing “gaps” in the absorption of SLA veterans in Israel, some four years ago.
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Posted by Fred 2022-06-27 00:00||
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