Five Lebanese citizens, including two elderly men, were imprisoned for four days in a bus, reserve soldiers serving in the Military Police told Haaretz Monday.
The reservists said that arguments in the Israel Defense Forces prevented putting the prisoners in a POW compound. The prisoners were released when it transpired that they were not associated with Hezbollah.
When a war starts, army regulations require setting up a prison facility for POWs in 24 hours, and one was set up in a military camp in the north. Some 15 days after the fighting began, the IDF started sending prisoners it captured in Lebanon back to Israel.
The MP soldiers asked to intern the POWs in the prison facility that had been set up for this purpose, but senior officers refused to open it. "They feared the temporary facility would become permanent and be a burden after the reserve soldiers are discharged," a military source said.
The idea to set up a POW facility in tents on civilian territory was ruled out, for fear of media attention, and the soldiers and POWs were forced to sit together in a bus that was placed on a truck chassis for four days and nights.
"Two of them were 70 or 80 years old, it was very difficult for them because they had to climb in and out of the bus with chains on their legs. It would be hard to describe it as humanitarian treatment," one soldier said.
The bus was filled with equipment, leaving little room for the POWs and the heat in it was unbearable. The soldiers said some 20 POWs were sent to them, most of whom were released after questioning.
A small number of POWs was sent to prisons in the central region for the continuation of their interrogation.