The call came a day after seven people were killed in fresh clashes, bringing the total number of fatalities since the fighting began to 15.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad today called for an immediate ceasefire in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, outside the city of Sidon, in southern Lebanon.
The call came a day after seven people were killed in fresh clashes there, bringing to 15 the total number of fatalities since the fighting began.
According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, the two groups issued a joint statement about “the seriousness of what is happening in Ain al-Hilweh” and regretted that the clashes “have caused dozens of deaths and injuries, the destruction of homes and properties and the displacement of honorable people.”
These clashes are contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and only benefit the enemy of the Palestinians and the suspicious projects against the Palestinian camps to eliminate the refugee problem,” they stated, stressing that “the objective is the security and stability” of the Lebanon. .
In this sense, they called for an immediate ceasefire, as the Shiite militia Hezbollah had already done, and asked “the Palestinian resistance forces” to “reveal who is involved in the fighting,” that “close ranks” and “unify the Palestinian position to confront only the Zionist enemy”.
The refugee camp has been rocked by violence.within the framework of a series of operations launched by Fatah, which controls the square, against Islamist groups outside Hamas, accused of the murder, in July, of a senior commander of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in Ain al-Hilweh .
Under the terms of a current convention, the Lebanese army cannot enter any of the country’s 12 Palestinian camps, leaving the security of the camps in the hands of Palestinian factions, including Fatah, the party of ANP President Mahmoud Abbas. .
In November 2016, the Lebanese army “interrupted” the construction of a ““security wall” around this refugee camps, the largest in the country.
Ain al-Hilweh is known for the coexistence there of fugitives and extremists, who take advantage of the impossibility of being detained there by the Lebanese authorities.
More than 47,000 Palestinian refugees are registered in Ain al-Hilweha camp created in 1948 to house Palestinians who fled their homes after the creation of the State of Israel, joined by several thousand more who fled the armed conflict in Syria.
In Lebanon, around 488,000 Palestinians are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Source: Observadora
