SAUDI ARABIA URGES ITS CITIZENS TO QUICKLY LEAVE LEBANON

Sat 05 August 2023:

Saudi Arabia called on its citizens to quickly leave Lebanese territory and to avoid approaching areas where there have been armed clashes, the Saudi embassy in Lebanon said in a statement published late on Friday.

The embassy stressed “the importance of adhering to the Saudi travel ban to Lebanon,” the statement added.

Kuwait also issued an advisory early on Saturday calling on Kuwaitis in Lebanon to stay vigilant and avoid “areas of security disturbances.”

On Aug. 1, the United Kingdom also updated its travel advice for Lebanon, advising against “all but essential travel” to parts of Lebanon’s south near the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh.

Ongoing violence

Since July 29, at least 13 people have been killed and more than 60 injured in clashes between the mainstream faction Fatah and a hardline group in the camp, the largest of 12 Palestinian camps established in Lebanon in 1948 after Israel was created.

Fatah has accused the armed groups Jund al-Sham and al-Shabab al-Muslim of gunning down a Fatah military general, Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, in the camp.

According to Maher Shabaita, the head of Fatah in the Sidon region, Palestinian factions in the camp have formed an investigative committee to find out who was responsible for al-Armoushi’s killing and will hand them over to the Lebanese judiciary for trial.

A ceasefire between the Palestinian groups in the camp was announced on July 31 under the mediation of Lebanese parties.

However, armed clashes continue to take place between the factions from time to time.

According to the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, Ein el-Hilweh hosts 80,000 to 250,000 refugees.

What’s the Ein el-Hilweh camp?

Like many other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and neighbouring countries, Ein el-Hilweh was established in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba, which means “catastrophe”.

The Nakba was the expulsion of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, villages and towns by Zionist militias during the establishment of the Israeli state.

Ein el-Hilweh was originally established by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and most of its early inhabitants had been displaced from northern Palestinian coastal towns.

Now its residents include a large number of Palestinian refugees who were displaced during the Lebanese Civil War and in the aftermath of the Nahr el-Bared conflict in 2007 when fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, an armed group, and the Lebanese army.

The refugee population in Ein el-Hilweh continued to grow after 2011 when Syria’s civil war broke out after Bashar al-Assad cracked down on anti-government protests. Millions of people were displaced, including Palestinian refugees who were residing in Syria. Many sought safety in Lebanon and resettled in the camp.

The camp is surrounded by a large wall, and access is limited. Materials used for building and construction are regulated by the Lebanese army, which manages several checkpoints that lead to the camp.

Due to a longstanding agreement, the Lebanese army does not enter the camp, leaving its internal security in the hands of Palestinian factions inside.

An additional 11 official refugee camps are registered under UNRWA across Lebanon. They house almost half a million Palestinians. They live in squalid conditions under a variety of legal restrictions, including on employment.

What’s the history of fighting at Ein el-Hilweh?

Ein el-Hilweh has seen many eruptions of violence over the decades. The camp has seen factional fighting and has been a battlefield between Palestinian factions and Lebanese forces.

In 1974 during the Lebanese Civil War, dozens of Israeli fighter jets bombed and strafed Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, predominantly the Ein el-Hilweh camp, in attacks billed as a response to an earlier bombing.

Several people were killed and dozens were wounded in what at the time were believed to be the heaviest air attacks ever carried out in Lebanon.

About 20,000 people are estimated to have lived in the Ein el-Hilweh camp at the time, many of whom saw their closely packed living quarters damaged or destroyed by the Israeli bombs and rockets.

In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli army heavily bombed the camp, leaving half-destroyed buildings standing in a sea of rubble.

The fighting that led to the near destruction of the camp, which was home to about 25,000 residents at the time, lasted for several days, and the number of those killed or wounded remains unclear.

Dozens more Israeli air strikes were recorded in the decade that followed, including after Israel’s retreat from Beirut in 1985.

The camp and it surrounding areas also became scenes of battle between Palestinian fighters and the Lebanese army in the early 1990s that left dozens dead amid the instability that followed the end of the long-running Lebanese Civil War.

Since then, factions have fought for dominance within the camp, and have also cracked down on armed groups and fugitives seeking shelter in the camp’s overcrowded neighbourhoods.

In 2017, Palestinian factions engaged in almost a week of fierce clashes with an armed group affiliated with ISIL (ISIS).

What happened in the latest fighting?

Fighters linked to the Fatah faction have increasingly gained prominence in Ein el-Hilweh in recent years.

During fighting between members of Fatah and the Islamist group Junud al-Sham, a mortar shell hit a military barracks outside the camp and wounded one soldier, whose condition is stable, the Lebanese army said in a statement.

Factions within the camp used assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and lobbed hand grenades in the narrow streets of Ein el-Hilweh.

The violence lasted several hours and prompted some residents in the Sidon neighbourhoods near the camp to flee their homes. Two UNRWA-run schools were damaged.

The fighting drew condemnation from caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who called on Palestinian leaders to cooperate with the Lebanese army to contain the situation.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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