2023-09-09 23:48:00
Four people, including a civilian, were killed in clashes in the Palestinian refugee camp of Aïn el-Heloué in southern Lebanon on Saturday, with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the new violence .
Since Thursday evening, fighting has pitted Islamist groups against Fatah fighters, the main Palestinian organization, in this camp next to the city of Saida. Thirteen people had already died during similar clashes over several days at the end of July and beginning of August.
After a relatively calm night, fighting resumed on Saturday, according to an AFP correspondent in Saida who heard the sound of automatic weapons and rockets.
They caused the death of “two Fatah people” and an Islamist, while a “civilian died after being shot” outside the camp, official Lebanese news agency NNA reported. , also reporting dozens of injuries.
A public hospital located next to the camp has transferred all its patients to other establishments because of the risk, its director, Ahmad al-Samadi, told AFP.
Abbas arrested
“What is happening does not serve the Palestinian cause at all and is a grave offense to the Lebanese state” and the city of Saida, Mikati told Abbas in a phone call, according to a statement from the office. of the Lebanese Prime Minister.
Mr. Mikati stressed “the priority of ending military operations” and the need to “cooperate with the Lebanese security forces to resolve tensions”, according to the press release posted on X (ex-Twitter).
The Lebanese army, which under an agreement does not deploy to Palestinian camps where security is provided by Palestinian factions, called on “all parties involved in the camp to stop the fighting”.
She added that she was taking “the necessary measures (…) to put an end to the clashes which endanger the lives of innocent people”.
Dozens of families have fled the camp since Thursday evening, carrying bags full of basic necessities such as bread, water or medicine, according to an AFP correspondent.
Camp resident Mohammed Badran, 32, said he would rather “sleep outside in the street” with his wife and children than return home because of the fighting.
“It’s hell,” he said in a mosque in Saida where he found refuge with other families.
An AFP correspondent saw aid workers setting up tents in front of the municipal stadium in Saida to house other people displaced by the fighting.
Tents for the displaced
“The municipality is cooperating with the Red Cross to set up 16 tents initially,” Mustafa Hijazi, a crisis unit official at the municipality, told AFP.
“More would need to be installed to accommodate around 250 people,” he added.
The fighting focused on a school complex belonging to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), a source within the camp’s management told AFP, who spoke on condition of anonymity. .
The UN called on armed groups on Friday to “immediately” evacuate schools belonging to UNRWA.
Ain el-Heloue is the largest of 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon that were established after the arrival of refugees forced into exodus during the first Arab-Israeli war, which began after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Some 54,000 refugees are piled up there, including radical Islamists and people wanted by the courts to escape the Lebanese authorities.
The violence that shook the camp at the end of July, for five days, was the most serious in years. They broke out following the death of a member of a small Islamist group, and five members of Fatah, including a military leader, were subsequently killed in an ambush.
Fatah, the historic Palestinian organization, remains the most powerful formation in Aïn el-Heloué but its influence is contested by the Islamist organizations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
09/09/2023 23:46:38 – Saida (Lebanon) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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