"Collaborators not welcome" reads a roadside placard in southern Lebanon, where debate has flared once again over the return of thousands who collaborated with Israel s 22-year occupation.
The warning stood next to the road leading to Qlayaa, a village nestled among lush, green fields and flowing olive groves.
It was once a bastion of the South Lebanon Army, a Christian-led militia allied to Israel and opposed to the now-dominant Shiite Hezbollah movement.
When the Israeli army withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, thousands of SLA members and their families chose to cross the border too and settle in Israel or elsewhere.
In Qlayaa, those residents who remain don t like to talk to journalists, and many homes are abandoned.
"There s more than 100 of them that are shuttered up," says one man, refusing to give his name. "Entire families left and we haven t heard from them since."
When they die, "only a few bodies get repatriated to be buried in the village," he says.
For some, including Hezbollah supporters, SLA members are traitors. Others, mostly from Christian parties, say they are exiles who should be allowed to return.
