 At least two people including a child were wounded during clashes between rival groups in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp.
| "One false move and the kid [BLAM!] gets it!" |
According to witnesses and Palestinian security sources, fighters from late Palestinian President Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction traded fire with supporters of an Islamist group that has often feuded with Fatah in the camp and relatives of a member of that group. A Palestinian child and a man in a part of the camp away from the scene of the fighting were injured by stray fire, Palestinian security and medical sources said on Sunday. The fighting was the most recent in a tedious long string of skirmishes between Islamist factions and mainstream Palestinian groups led by Fatah that have effective control of the camp, which Lebanese forces dare do not enter. The Ein el-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon is the largest of a dozen in Lebanon where some 350,000 Palestinians are registered among the refugees displaced after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. The camp is a sensitive issue in Lebanon where authorities fear that the Palestinian refugees could threaten the delicate sectarian balance of power in the country.
At least two people were wounded Sunday in clashes between members of the Palestinian mainstream Fatah faction and Islamic extremists in Lebanon's largest refugee camp, officials said. Fatah guerrillas battled members of Jund al-Sham, a small, radical Palestinian group based at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon. It was not clear what triggered the fighting, in which heavy machine-guns and shells were used, but tensions had been simmering for months. Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fatah military officials were storming houses of Jund al-Sham members in an attempt to crack down on the group. At least two Fatah members were wounded, they said.
Jund al-Sham is a little-known Sunni Muslim fundamentalist group that emerged in Ein el-Hilweh last year. Its estimated 50 members, who brand Christians and Shiite Muslims as "infidels," have had tense relations with Fatah supporters. The group's former leader, Mohammed Ahmed Sharkiyeh, resigned last October, citing health reasons, but Palestinian officials at the time said Fatah's threats to liquidate Jund al-Sham were behind the resignation. His resignation followed clashes between Jund al-Sham gunmen and Fatah guerrillas in the camp in which at least two people were killed and several wounded.
The fighting started around 3 p.m., when an armed group wearing Jund al-Sham masks broke into the house of Fatah military chief captain Lino, who lives in the Safouri quarter, and started shooting at his guards. As the conflict developed, the two groups used B.7 missiles, automatic weapons and hand grenades. Palestinian sources said the fighting came as a response to a previous dispute that occurred during the day between a member of Fatah movement and members of Jund al-Sham. The initial dispute resulted in the arrest of Wissam Ahmed - thought to be a Jund al-Sham member - by some of Lino's supporters. The fighting's soon spread throughout the camp, prompting many citizens there to flee to Sidon. The National and Islamic Forces issued a statement calling for a cease-fire and citizens took to the streets demonstrating against the fighting. |