Israeli Flees to Lebanon to Escape ‘Social Suffering’
The Israeli man who jumped the border fence into Lebanon last week did so to escape “his suffering in Israeli society,” writes Nasser Chararah.
On Thursday, May 3, 2013, an Israeli man in his 30s jumped the border fence separating Lebanon and Israel and was arrested by Lebanese army intelligence shortly after. During his interrogation, he said that he fled Israel voluntarily because he was suffering socially in Israeli society.
Al-Monitor learned — from sources inside the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which assigned an officer to be present during the Israeli man’s interrogation — the man’s identity, his story’s details and why he fled to Lebanon.
The man claimed that he was of Iranian origin, lived in Tel Aviv and never knew his parents. He said that he was unemployed because of his social conditions and was repeatedly raped while growing up.
He said that he decided to leave Israel to escape Israeli society’s oppression. He said that he left Tel Aviv on Thursday morning and moved from one bus station to another until he reached Nahariya, near the Lebanese border. From there, he walked through the orchards until he arrived at the border fence, which he jumped over and into Lebanese territory.
