PALESTINIAN GROUPS CLASH FOR A THIRD DAY IN LEBANON CAMP

Mon 31 July 2023:

At least nine people have died and scores more have been injured in fighting over the course of three days between rival armed groups inside Lebanon’s largest camp for Palestinian refugees, according to officials.

While Lebanese and Palestinian efforts to mediate a ceasefire failed, the region around the Ein el-Hilweh camp, which is close to the southern port city of Sidon, was blocked off by the Lebanon’s army on Monday.

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.

Palestinians in Lebanon have restricted rights to work and own property, and the vast majority of them live in poverty.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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