Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister on Thursday threatened army intervention to stem days of heavy fighting between rival factions in the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp which has left at least 13 dead and dozens injured.
In a phone call to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas – also the head of the Fatah party, which wields considerable power in Lebanon’s refugee camps – prime minister Najib Mikati demanded an end to armed clashes which have threatened to spill out of the Ain al Hilweh camp and into the coastal city of Saida.
"The army and all of Lebanon's security forces are going to perform the required role in maintaining security and halting the fighting," Mr Mikati told Mr Abbas, according to a statement released by his office.
Mr Mikati called the fighting a “flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty” and said it was unacceptable for the warring Palestinian groups to “terrorise the Lebanese”.
Already the clashes have resulted in dozens injured and thousands of people displaced from the camp, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. Hundreds of families are sheltering in the agency's schools and in mosques until it is safe to return to the camp.
Ain Al Hilweh is notorious for harbouring fugitives and Islamist gangs. The camp has been the site of a power struggle between Palestinian factions and a network of extremists for over a decade.
Two people were killed and around 10 injured in renewed fighting between Islamist insurgent groups and Palestinian factions overnight, according to a member of the Popular Committees, a coalition of representatives that run the camp, on Thursday – bringing the death toll up to 13.
“It was a very bleak night. The clashes lasted until dawn,” he told The National.
“People can't take it any more,” he added. “We fall asleep every night to the music of bombs.”
The fighting, which has continued despite a ceasefire being agreed on Monday, had subsided by Thursday morning.
While clashes between rival factions are not uncommon, this week’s battles have been especially ferocious due to assassination of high-profile Fatah commander Abu Ashraf Al Armoushi and four of his bodyguards on Sunday.
Fatah identified the assailants as members of the militant group Jund Al Sham and allied groups.
Palestinian political officials have warned that a long-term ceasefire in the camp would be on the condition of the surrender of Mr Armoushi’s killers.
While periods of calm have punctuated the camp’s atmosphere over the last few days, heavy fighting has routinely continued to erupt.
Videos of the battle shared with The National by camp residents showed a series of rockets hurtling overhead, while explosions were heard in the distance.
Fatah, the strongest political faction in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps, has for years attempted to contain the presence of outlaws and smaller networks of insurgents who seek to gain control of Ain Al Hilweh.
Asbat Al Ansar, an Islamist fundamentalist group with an operations base in the camp and allied with the Islamist militant groups accused of killing Mr Armoushi, issued a statement distancing itself from this week's clashes and claimed the ceasefire was broken by Fatah.
“We were surprised, at exactly nine o’clock this evening, by a violent attack on our centres and mosques in the Al Ta’ara neighbourhood and Al Safsaf neighbourhood by unruly elements of the Fatah movement,” it said.
The group added that it refused to engage in clashes between Fatah and Islamist factions despite the death of one of its own members this week.
“We assure our Palestinian and Lebanese people that we have not and will not be dragged into these clashes, whatever the price,” the group said, calling on political leaders to find an end to the conflict.
Ain Al Hilweh is home to more than 50,000 registered refugees. Many of them came from coastal towns in northern Palestine.
Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps present fertile ground for fugitives and outlaw groups to flourish owing to a contentious decades-old agreement that, for the most part, prevents Lebanon’s military from entering them.
But the Lebanese military does intervene in some rare cases. Notably, Ain al Hilweh is also home to some of the 30,000 Palestinian refugees displaced from the Nahr Al Bared camp, which was destroyed in 2007 during 15 weeks of fighting between the Lebanese army and extremist groups.
Some of those militants expanded into Ain Al Hilweh following the conflict.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Tottenham Hotspur v Borussia Dortmund, midnight (Thursday), BeIN Sports
The biog
Favourite book: Men are from Mars Women are from Venus
Favourite travel destination: Ooty, a hill station in South India
Hobbies: Cooking. Biryani, pepper crab are her signature dishes
Favourite place in UAE: Marjan Island
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Specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.5-litre%20turbo%204-cylinder%20%2F%202.0%20turbo%204-cylinder%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20148bhp%20%2F%20328bhp%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20250Nm%20%2F%20420Nm%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20December%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20TBA%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday (UAE kick-off times)
Atalanta v Juventus (6pm)
AC Milan v Napoli (9pm)
Torino v Inter Milan (11.45pm)
Sunday
Bologna v Parma (3.30pm)
Sassuolo v Lazio (6pm)
Roma v Brescia (6pm)
Verona v Fiorentina (6pm)
Sampdoria v Udinese (9pm)
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Monday
SPAL v Genoa (11.45pm)
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The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
The bio:
Favourite holiday destination: I really enjoyed Sri Lanka and Vietnam but my dream destination is the Maldives.
Favourite food: My mum’s Chinese cooking.
Favourite film: Robocop, followed by The Terminator.
Hobbies: Off-roading, scuba diving, playing squash and going to the gym.
The biog
Fatima Al Darmaki is an Emirati widow with three children
She has received 46 certificates of appreciation and excellence throughout her career
She won the 'ideal mother' category at the Minister of Interior Awards for Excellence
Her favourite food is Harees, a slow-cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled wheat berries mixed with chicken
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
The%20Mother%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Niki%20Caro%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Jennifer%20Lopez%2C%20Joseph%20Fiennes%2C%20Gael%20Garcia%20Bernal%2C%20Omari%20Hardwick%20and%20Lucy%20Paez%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE tour of the Netherlands
UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures:
Monday, 1st 50-over match
Wednesday, 2nd 50-over match
Thursday, 3rd 50-over match
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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more from Janine di Giovanni
The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
BELGIUM%20SQUAD
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