QLAYAA: Bshara Rizk awoke at dawn and headed home, making his way through mine-infested fields and climbing over a barbed-wire fence that stood between him and his native Lebanon. Bloodied but euphoric, he arrived in his hometown of Qlayaa, located just across the border from Israel, where he exclaimed to the local priest: "I'm back."

Rizk, 24, had been living in a northern Israeli town since 2000, when his father's mainly Christian militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), followed its Israeli allies as they withdrew back across the border.

For eight years, Rizk worked at a factory in Israel while the rest of his family, like many other SLA members, lived off Israeli government subsidies.

"I never felt complete there and I always wanted to go back to Lebanon," the burly Rizk told AFP in an interview following his return home on a Thursday back in June.

His family was among hundreds who fled because of their links to the SLA which was trained, financed and armed by Israel during its decades-long occupation of predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon. Unlike Rizk, most returnees inform the authorities and their passage is facilitated by the UN peacekeeping force in South Lebanon.

Of the estimated 6,500 mainly Christian Lebanese who settled in northern Israel in 2000, only about 2,700 remain, Maronite Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land Paul Sayah told AFP. Those who choose to come back are often viewed as traitors by fellow Lebanese and many face jail time upon their return on charges of collaborating with the enemy.

"In Israel, they were all given full residency which means every right except the right to vote," Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told AFP.

"They have every other right - social security, the right to work wherever they please. For those who chose to ask for citizenship the road was open." But in spite of these rights, many still long to return to Lebanon.

"Most don't want to stay there," said Sayah, who assists SLA families and travels back and forth between the two countries which are technically still at war.

"It is not their society and they have difficulty adapting socially and culturally," Sayah added. "The fact that Rizk risked his life to come back shows what an unbearable state of mind some of them are in."

May returned to Qlayaa after spending just a month in northern Israel in 2000, leaving behind her husband to reunite with her four children, two of whom were still in college at the time.

"When we ran away to Israel we thought it was going to be only for a couple weeks until the crisis subsided," said May, 45, who asked that her real name not be used.

"You could have put me in heaven and I wouldn't have liked it," she added, recalling her time in Israel. "I had to leave my home and our life's work behind."

The SLA, a force of about 2,500 men that also included many Shiites and Druze men, split from the Lebanese Army in 1976 during the height of Lebanon's Civil War, which pitted Muslims against Christians.

Its members, many of them from the village of Qlayaa, manned the front lines, fighting against the Palestinian and Lebanese factions who were resisting Israel.


In Lebanon, the SLA is often referred to as "Lahd's Army," after its leader Antoine Lahd, a former general in the Lebanese Army who currently resides in northern Israel.


Many SLA fighters fled for fear that Hizbullah would retaliate against them for collaborating with Israeli forces. However, Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah adopted a conciliatory stance after Israel completed its withdrawal on May 24, 2000.

"You are our sons, our hearts and our eyes," he said. "We will be your parents and your protectors." Since Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon, now a Hizbullah stronghold, there have been no recorded incidents of retribution against SLA members, still seen as collaborators by most factions.

Hizbullah, which declined comment for this article, has left the matter to the courts, which in some cases has ordered former SLA fighters not to return to their village for a number of years to avoid unrest.

Fresh in the memory of many Lebanese is the notorious SLA-run Khiam prison in the south, where hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners were held under extremely harsh conditions.

Detainees "were systematically tortured and ill-treated," according to the US-based human rights organization Amnesty International.

Mohammad Safa, who runs the Khiam Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Torture, said it was still difficult for victims of the SLA to face their torturers.

"For example you have one guy who lives near a former SLA prison guard who was behind his detention," Safa said.

"Every time he drives by the guard's house he recalls his captivity," he said.

"This has a deep psychological impact. It causes him emotional stress." Safa said. "Every time he sees that house, he is reminded of his detention." 
Safa maintains that the courts should address the return of SLA families on a case-by-case basis.

"We believe that everyone should be held accountable for their actions by law but not every interaction with the [Israeli] enemy can be considered treason," he said.

The uncertainty of what lies ahead in Lebanon is prompting many SLA families to stay put in Israel, Sayah said.

"They are afraid of the courts and the harsh sentences they may face, as well as the financial situation," he explained.

"In Israel, they are working. Here who knows? Many of them don't have any training besides what they learned in the military," he added.

He noted that Lebanon, whose gross domestic product was estimated by the World Bank in 2007 to be $24 billion as compared to Israel's $162 billion, does not offer many job prospects for those coming back.
Since returning home, Rizk has been unemployed and is being supported by his extended family.

"Money is not everything," he said. "I have no regrets.

"I always felt there was something missing," he added. "In Israel, you live well ... but at the end of the day, it's their society, not yours."