Unrest in Lebanon refugee camp US-Israeli plot: Fatah
An official from the Palestinian Fatah movement has described the recent spate of clashes at the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon as a plot hatched by the United States and the Israeli regime.
"There is an Israeli-American plan through both internal and external groups to destabilize the camp," Munir Makdah, a Fatah official in Ain al-Hilweh camp, said on Monday.
The Fatah official further noted that gunmen from the Jund al-Sham extremist group now control over four of Ain al-Hilweh camp's 11 districts.
Makdah said the fighting has forced a large number of Palestinian families to take refuge in the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon, situated 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital, Beirut, estimating the damage to structures and buildings at Ain al-Hilweh to be over one million dollars.
He added, "What is happening mirrors the state of things in the country. They aim to destroy the camp and force the Palestinian refugees to leave Lebanon, as happened to the Palestinians in Syria."
Makdah was making a reference to the Yarmouk camp near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Once a very thriving place hosting tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees as well as Syrians, Yarmouk has turned into a ghost town as a result of violent attacks by anti-government militants over the past four years of turmoil in Syria.
At least two people lost their lives on August 27, when Fatah supporters and Jund al-Sham militants engaged in a fierce gun battle at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp.
On August 25, at least three people were killed and 36 others injured in clashes between Jund al-Sham militants and Fatah advocates in the northern sector of Ain al-Hilweh.
Two days earlier, two Fatah members were killed when Jund al-Sham sought to assassinate Ashraf al-Armoushi, Fatah’s security chief, inside the camp. Armoushi escaped the attack unscathed.
According to local medical sources, a total of at least 15 people, both civilians and non-civilians, were wounded, some critically.
Ain al-Hilweh had a population of about 70,000 residents before the figure swelled by nearly two fold as a result of the influx of refugees fleeing the foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria.
Under a tacit deal stuck after the 1975-1990 civil war, the Lebanese army does not enter the country’s 12 official Palestinian refugee camps, where the factions themselves handle security.
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