Exile To Nowhere

ISRAELI AUTHORITIES NEVER IMAGINED WHAT MEDIA stars they would make of 415 alleged Palestinian militants when they deported the lot to Lebanon two weeks ago. But celebrities they have become. The Lebanese government refused to grant asylum to the deportees, so the group spent the week shuffling through freezing weather between a checkpoint manned by the Lebanese army and another, three miles away, guarded by the Israelis and their proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army. At least two exiles were injured when the S.L.A. fired warning shots and mortars at the group as it approached Israel's proclaimed "security zone." The Israelis had hoped that deporting the fundamentalists would strengthen the hand of the rival Palestine Liberation Organization, which is indirectly engaged in peace talks with Israel. Instead, the P.L.O. has embraced the deportees. The main fundamentalist group, Hamas, for the first time attended a major meeting of the P.L.O. hierarchy in Tunis last Wednesday, while supporters of the two groups in the territories issued an unprecedented joint call for cooperation. Conditions for the deportees continued to deteriorate. The men threatened to swarm across Israeli lines, raising fears of potential slaughter.