The Morning Call

Shepherds caught in no man’s land

Lebanese herders at border accused by Israel of espionage

- By Raja Abdulrahim

SHEBAA, Lebanon — It was nearing the end of Hassan Zahra’s workday, herding goats on a mountainto­p along Lebanon’s southeaste­rn border, when he was ambushed by a group of Israeli soldiers, he said.

Zahra, 23, said that last year he was handcuffed, blindfolde­d and taken to an interrogat­ion facility in Israel, where he was accused of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Hundreds of his goats were left behind on the hillside.

“They said, ‘You shepherds, you make it seem like you are just herding but you work for Hezbollah and you watch us,’ ” Zahra said. “We just tend our goats, but they don’t believe us.”

Although the warring states of Lebanon and Israel have just negotiated a maritime border, the situation remains tense along their land frontier, which is still in dispute and lined with minefields and barbed-wire fencing, and monitored by drones.

Caught in the middle are the men who herd sheep and goats in southern Lebanon adjacent to the agricultur­al region called Shebaa Farms, which is claimed by Lebanon but occupied by Israel, where it is known as Mount Dov.

The shepherds say they are repeatedly abducted by Israeli troops, accused of feeding informatio­n about the army and its movements in the area to Hezbollah.

But when they are released, they are often then hauled in for questionin­g by the Lebanese authoritie­s, who apparently fear that they may have been recruited as spies for the other side. Both the herders

and Hezbollah deny the Israeli charges of espionage.

When Israel ended its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, it withdrew to what is called the Blue Line, a demarcatio­n set by the United Nations for the purpose of confirming the Israeli withdrawal. But the formal border was never resolved. And Israel did not withdraw from Shebaa Farms, saying that the area was part of the Golan Heights that it took from Syria in 1967, a position backed by a United Nations assessment.

Zahra says that his family still has land in Shebaa Farms and that previous generation­s raised livestock there.

The area has long been a tinderbox between Israel and Lebanon; Hezbollah has said that it will not give up its weapons, despite U.N. resolution­s calling for the disarmamen­t of all Lebanese militias, as long as part of what it views as Lebanon

is occupied.

More than 10,000 U.N. peacekeepe­rs patrol the 75-mile Blue Line, but that has not prevented conflict from breaking out or herders like Zahra from being taken by Israeli troops in the areas along the porous border.

Andrea Tenenti, spokespers­on for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, acknowledg­ed the difficulti­es. “Because the line is not well-defined, it is hard to tell if the shepherds cross into Israel or if Israelis are crossing into Lebanon,” he said.

Tenenti said that the Israeli forces call herders like Zahra “operationa­l shepherds.” The Israeli military says the herders use a phone app that deletes photograph­s of personnel and vehicles once they are sent back to their Hezbollah handlers.

Sometimes, the herders are dispatched along the border with women and children “so as to conceal

their real purpose and to make them appear to be innocent,” the Israeli army said in a video released by an Israeli news website last year.

The video notes that the army “has been monitoring this trend and has proactivel­y chosen to expose it publicly as part of the battle of wits with the other side.”

Hezbollah called the Israeli accusation­s “hollow and baseless.”

“They aim to justify the attempts to kidnap the shepherds from time to time and interrogat­e them to obtain informatio­n on the resistance posts in that area or informatio­n related to the movement of members of the resistance in that area,” the group said in a statement.

Zahra said he was inside Lebanese territory in January 2021 when he came upon about a dozen Israeli soldiers, who surrounded him, rifles pointed at him. He was held for three days in Israel, he added, guarded around the clock by armed soldiers and interrogat­ed multiple times.

The Israeli army, responding to questions from The New York Times, said that Zahra had “infiltrate­d” Israeli territory and that his interrogat­ion had yielded valuable informatio­n.

Zahra’s detention last year was the second time he had been taken by Israeli soldiers, he added. He said that the first time, when he was 14, he and his older brother Ismail had been held for hours. Israeli interrogat­ors demanded to know who was sending them to the area, he recalled.

The U.N. peacekeepe­rs oversee the return of herders and livestock through the only operating border checkpoint in the area. It was there that Zahra crossed back into Lebanon after he was released by the Israeli forces.

Lebanese intelligen­ce officers then took him and questioned him for some 12 hours.

The Lebanese army did not respond to questions about why it interrogat­es the herders. Zahra’s father, Kassem Ali Zahra, 62, said he thought that the Lebanese army worried that shepherds could be recruited as Israeli spies.

“The government becomes suspicious of us,” said the elder Zahra, smiling at one of two Lebanese intelligen­ce officers who were standing nearby and closely watching his interview.

U.N. peacekeepe­rs in a small outpost nearby patrol around the clock and have radars that detect air violations of the Blue Line, which happen almost daily by Israel.

When the peacekeepe­rs see herders approachin­g the division, they blow whistles to warn them, said Lt. Col. Abhinav Bakshi, who oversees a contingent of Indian troops monitoring about 2½ miles of the Blue Line that is unmarked.

“If they don’t cross, it is easier for me because otherwise that’s two sleepless nights until we get them back and do a head count,” he said. “The shepherd doesn’t realize it is a line because it is an imaginary line.”

As he spoke, an Israeli surveillan­ce drone whirred overhead, a violation of the Blue Line’s rules.

This year, Bakshi said, there has been a rise in reported breaches of the Blue Line, with a minimum of two a day. About 40% of them involved herders and their flocks, he added.

Referring to the detentions of herders by Israel, Muhammad Hashim, governor of the southern Lebanese town of Shebaa, said, “The enemy takes them under the belief that they could be working for the benefit of the resistance.”

“But the resistance has its own people, it doesn’t need shepherds,” he said, referring to Hezbollah.

 ?? TAMARA SAADE/THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? Lebanese shepherd Ismail Zahra and his brother were interrogat­ed by Israelis in early 2021.
TAMARA SAADE/THE NEW YORK TIMES Lebanese shepherd Ismail Zahra and his brother were interrogat­ed by Israelis in early 2021.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States