(5 Sep 2000) Natural Sound
As Lebanon prepares for a new prime minister following Rafik Hariri's victory in the elections, the children of the South Lebanon Army began their first school year as refugees in Israel.
Thousands of members of the former Israel-allied militia fled to Israel, following its withdrawal from its self-declared "security zone" this year.
All 1,300 S-L-A children will be assimilated into the education system over the next month with the first batch starting this week.
Around a hundred began lessons in Netanya and another 90 in Ashkelon.
Next week a study center will open in the Jordan Valley for some 400 Lebanese living in a guest house near Tiberias, and the following week a further 800 will start school near Acre.
Israel has allocated 14 (m) million shekels (3.5 million dollars) towards the education of the children of their former allies in South Lebanon.
Some of the money will pay the salaries of 65 Lebanese teachers and 30 Israeli teachers to give the newcomers Hebrew lessons.
The remainder will fund school equipment, renovate classrooms and buy television and video equipment.
The curriculum for the first 12 months is designed to follow the Lebanese system in the hope that some of the refugees may be repatriated in this school year.
From next year the children will be fully integrated into Israeli schools.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We teach our children by the Lebanese program, all the teachers are Lebanese but we also teach them Hebrew"
SUPER CAPTION: Saad Issa, Educator of South Lebanese Children in Israel
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Everything deepened on Bashar Assad. Syria controls Lebanon, and it doesn't matter who comes and goes in Lebanon. Only when we will see Syrian troops leaving Lebanon then we could start thinking that things have improved and maybe we will have again independent and responsible state."
SUPER CAPTION: Saad Issa, Educator of South Lebanese Children in Israel
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I am very happy here because I study Hebrew, and I must study Hebrew
and it is like the program in Lebanon and the same books."
SUPER CAPTION:
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