Efforts Underway to Trace Hundreds of Palestinian MlAs in Israel

By Mary C. Cook

The telephone rings and yet another Palestinian family hears the news that their missing son, husband or brother may still be alive, held in one of the Israeli prisons. A rumor or is there some truth behind it?

Until the past few months, little was heard about the hundreds of cases of missing Palestinians, some of which date back as far as 1958, although the majority are MIAs from the 1967 war. No one is able to determine the exact number of Palestinians missing due to war, military operations or intifada activities. Nor can anyone be sure what happened to them.

It is only recently that the families have felt encouraged to report their loved ones missing. Prior to the signing of the Declaration of Principles, they were afraid of what the Israeli government might do to them if they made their cases public. Now the issue is becoming a subject of interest for both the Palestinian and Israeli press.

Recently, a picture appeared in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot of a cemetery located near the Adam Bridge in the northern Jordan Valley. The graveyard, surrounded by a high stone wall, has a sign hanging outside its entrance, on which its name, "The Cemetery of the Fallen Enemy" is painted in red. It is the burial place of as many as 200 Palestinian activists killed while trying to cross into the West Bank from Jordan or during the intifada. The headstones carry only numbers; the identities are a mystery to all except the Israeli army.

In an effort to obtain information about their missing family members, some Palestinians have turned to human rights organizations such as HaMoked, an Israeli association located in East Jerusalem. Such is the case of the Sawareh family, who left Palestine for Jordan in 1967.

Issa Sawareh's mother says that her son joined the Palestinian liberation forces when he was only 16 years old. Later she was told that Issa had taken part in a military operation in 1990, possibly in the Israeli-controlled "security zone" of south Lebanon. Subsequently, a Lebanese newspaper reported that three fedayeen were killed during that operation.

Unexpectedly, in 1993, Issa's mother received news that her son was being held in Ashkelon Prison on the Israeli coast. She immediately crossed the Allenby Bridge from Jordan to see what she could discover about her son. To facilitate her hunt, she contacted HaMoked volunteers. They searched the Israeli prison system in vain for the young man, and then concluded that he likely was one of the three killed that night.

After HaMoked appealed to the Israeli High Court, the Israeli army furnished photos of the three persons who died in the 1990 Lebanon operation. Issa's mother went to the Allenby Bridge, between Jordan and the West Bank, where she was met by HaMoked's lawyer and a nurse. The lawyer asked her if she could identify one of the men in the pictures as her son.

The mother was unable to make a positive identification, however, due to the poor quality of the photos. So in an effort to identify the body, which the Israeli authorities call Corpse 245, a blood sample was taken from the woman. Later blood was also drawn from her sick husband and transported to Jerusalem.

Presently, the Israeli human rights organization is demanding that the Israeli authorities exhume the body so that a positive identification can be made through DNA and blood testing.

A Missing Brother

Palestinian attorney Issa Hamed also is searching for his missing brother, Abdul Nasser Hained, who disappeared when his ship was sunk by the Israeli navy on April 21, 1985. Affidavits from six crew members affirm that some of those who were on board were taken prisoner. Israel later confirmed that information.

Following the disappearance of his brother, Hamed said, he and "other concerned citizens decided to start a society to trace missing persons when they saw how hard Israeli and American families of MlAs were working to attain information about their loved ones." He added: "Our society, the Arab Society for Tracing Missing Persons, has registered nearly 180 cases of persons missing since 1967, both in the West Bank and abroad."

The society, founded in early 1986, has sent letters to the International Committee for the Red Cross, the U.N., former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and present U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. It has never received a single reply.

Hamed has also been in contact with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Palestinian peace negotiators and Arab members of the Israeli Knesset. They all have promised to follow up on this issue, says the Jerusalem lawyer.

"We hope that the Palestinian leaders will take this very important subject into consideration," he adds. "It needs hard work."

Some of the cases date back as far as 1958.

It does need hard work, confirms Dalia Derstein, director of HaMoked. But she believes that this issue "should be solved on a general level, not case-by-case."

This is exactly what a newly formed Palestinian-Israeli committee is attempting to do, according to Knesset member Abdul Wahab Darawshe. And on Feb. 9, the committee met with seven MKs in the Knesset to discuss the issue.

In another attempt to acquire information, Darawshe and three other Arab Knesset members received permission from the Defense Ministry to visit the closed sections of Atlit Prison. Many of the rumors involving missing persons refer to their detention in this prison.

"When we arrived at the prison Feb. 10," said Darawshe, "a mistake was made. They took us to the criminal section of the prison, not the section for political prisoners."

Investigating the fate of Israeli soldiers missing in action since June 1982, a U.S. congressional delegation headed by House Foreign Affairs Committee staff director Michael Van Dusen visited Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Israel in January after Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad promised to assist the U.S. in obtaining new information about missing Israeli military personnel. No mention was ever made about Palestinians missing in Israel.

"The Israelis thought that holding Palestinian prisoners or their bodies would be good for an exchange, " explains Hamed. "They don't understand that the bodies are not so important for Muslims. We believe the soul is more important."

Meanwhile, the families of the missing continue to wonder about their relatives. And many still continue to carry on the search, wandering from organization to organization, always with a little hope.

Mary C Cook, formerly with Al Fajr, is a freelance writer living in the West Bank.