Al-Jazeera / July 31, 2023
At least nine people killed and dozens wounded as efforts to broker ceasefire at Ein al-Hilweh camp fail.
Three days of fighting between rival armed groups inside the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens more, officials say.
Lebanon’s army on Monday sealed off the area around the Ein al-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon as clashes continued despite Lebanese and Palestinian efforts to broker a ceasefire.
Reporting from outside the camp, which is home to 55,000 refugees, Al-Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said on Monday afternoon that the intensity of the “fierce” fighting had “increased in recent hours”.
“This really has the making of a humanitarian crisis,” she added. Dozens of families have managed to escape the densely populated camp, but others are trapped inside because it is too dangerous to flee, and some have taken shelter in mosques, Khodr said.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees has suspended its aid operations and services in the camp, she added.
A Lebanese army spokesperson said the death toll on Monday had risen to nine, The Associated Press news agency reported. At least 37 people were reportedly wounded.
The violence began on Saturday when an unknown gunman tried to kill a member of an armed group named Mahmoud Khalil but instead fatally shot his companion.
Full-blown clashes erupted the next day when fighters in retaliation shot and killed a military general from the Fatah group, Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, and three escorts as they were walking through a parking lot, according to a Palestinian official, who spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
‘We ran for our lives’
Local Lebanese lawmaker Osama Saad announced a new ceasefire on Monday afternoon after a meeting between Lebanese officials, security forces and Palestinian factions, but fighting continued afterwards.
“It seems the situation will escalate further,” a local woman said outside the camp. “We heard about a ceasefire on more than one occasion, but no side is holding to it. The situation is dire. Families are dispersed here and there. Security is totally absent inside.”
A man who managed to flee the violence said his entire neighbourhood had been destroyed.
“We ran for our lives, leaving everything behind as shells and bullets were flying over our heads. Until midnight it was all calm, but by 2 in the morning, fighting renewed. It has intensified since then,” he said.
Ein al-Hilweh is one of 12 camps established in Lebanon in 1948 for Palestinian refugees after the creation of Israel. After a 1969 agreement between Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Lebanese army has generally avoided entering the camps, but some Lebanese officials have called for the army to take control of the camps in the wake of the recent clashes.
Samy Gemayel, a member of parliament and head of the Kataeb party, called on Monday for “the disarmament of the camps and placing them in the custody of the Lebanese army”, according to the state-run National News Agency.
Palestinians in Lebanon have restricted rights to work and own property, and the vast majority of them live in poverty.
Rami Khouri, director of Global Engagement at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera the violence was “a recurring side-effect of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Zionist conquest of Palestine”.
“This kind of tension recurs regularly, and therefore, it really reminds us that one of the benefits of resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict is a Palestinian state, … which will obviate the need for these camps and take away these tensions,” he said.
SOURCE: AL-JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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At least nine killed as Palestinian groups wage ‘war’ in Lebanese camp
Nada Homsi
The National / July 31, 2023
Fighting between armed factions at Ain al-Hilweh intensifies on Monday despite calls for ceasefire.
A fierce battle between Palestinian factions in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, the largest in Lebanon, raged for a third day on Monday as politicians pressed for a ceasefire.
The death toll has risen to nine, with about 40 injured. More than 2,000 people have been displaced from the Palestinian camp in Saida (Sidon) since the fighting began on Saturday evening, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Footage circulating on social media showed heavy smoke rising over the camp as the sound of rapid machinegun fire emanated. Factions within the overcrowded refugee site used heavy weaponry, Lebanese state media reported.
UNRWA said a member of its staff was injured in the clashes, while the Lebanese army said a soldier at a nearby military barracks was wounded by shrapnel.
UNRWA said it had temporarily suspended all services in the camp but opened its schools to accommodate those displaced by the fighting and provide humanitarian assistance.
At least 11 people were admitted to Sidon’s Hamshari Hospital on Monday as clashes resumed after a period of calm on Sunday evening, hospital director Dr Riyad Abu al-Enein said.
Talal Aboujamous, a doctor who lives in Ain al-Hilweh described the fighting in the camp as a “war”.
“The number of people being displaced from the camp is not small and the battle has expanded to every corner of the camp,” he told The National by phone. “When I look out the window I see scared people rushing to get out of the camp.”
The sound of bullets whizzing past could be heard in the background as he spoke.
Dr Aboujamous said the violence had been escalating since Saturday evening, with only brief periods of calm.
A Lebanese security source told The National the army had closed off all entrances to the camp to prevent civilian casualties but it was not preventing fleeing families from leaving.
Lebanon’s army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in the country, leaving the Palestinian factions to handle security inside.
Mifleh Noufal, born and raised in Ain al-Hilweh but now residing in the nearby Mieh w Mieh area, said the sound of a battle had been near constant.
“The war is between Fatah and a group of extremists,” he said. “The Islamists don’t have a lot of support in the camp. They’re responsible for a number of assassinations and always try to make problems in the camp.”
The fighting was reportedly triggered by a failed assassination attempt on an Islamist extremist leader on Saturday, Lebanese state media reported, instead killing one of his companions.
On Sunday, Fatah security official Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi and four of his bodyguards were killed in a “heinous operation”, according to a statement by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization under which the Fatah movement operates.
The assailants were identified as members of the militant group Jund al Sham “and takfiri gangs”, said a statement by Maj Gen Subhi Abu Arab, commander of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the Lebanese camps.
Clashes between Fatah, the largest faction within the PLO, and rival Islamist extremists are not uncommon in the camp, which is reputed to harbour outlaws. Fatah has for years attempted to contain the presence of outlaws and smaller networks of insurgents who seek to gain control of the camp.
Ain al-Hilweh is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.
Nada Homsi is a correspondent at The National’s Beirut bureau
