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A heavy firing has been reported around the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli. Lebanese Army on May 23, 2007 shot dead eight Fatah al-Islam extremists after the Islamic militants fired at Army positions. Fifty-five Lebanese soldiers have also been wounded in the gunfight.
More than two thirds of Nahr al-Bared's 31,000 residents have been displaced by the fighting, as relief agencies struggle to deliver aid to the displaced and residents still trapped inside. The Beirut government, pushing for a peaceful end to the standoff, has insisted the group to handover fighters to stand trial over attacks against the Army during the internal fighting in the 1975-1990 civil wars; but Fatah al-Islam is obdurate that none of its fighters will surrender. In all, 86 people have died in the fighting that started on 20 May 2007. The situation at the camp relatively calmed after a week but remains very unstable, as the extremists keep firing on the Army which responds forcefully. Lebanon is home to more than 400,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA statistics.
Many of them fled or left their homes when Israel was created in 1948. The camp was established by the League of Red Cross Societies in 1949 to accommodate Palestinian refugees from the Lake Huleh area. The UNRWA started providing services for the refugees in 1950.
Most of the displaced refugees have flooded in to Badawi camp, where humanitarian organisations are carrying out relief work. More food supplies, medicine and water were sent to Nahr al-Bared, where inhabitants have no electricity or running water. Fatah Al-Islam, a splinter group from Fatah Al-Intifada, which itself split from the Palestinian Fatah movement in the early 1980s, has vowed to fight. "Our fighters are ready to fight until the last drop of blood," a spokesman for Fatah Al-Islam told. Members of Lebanon's anti-Syrian cabinet have described Fatah al-Islam as a tool of Syrian intelligence, although Damascus denies any links to the group. Lebanese authorities say Fatah al-Islam includes Arabs from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Lebanon.
The clashes broke out on 20 May after the Lebanese soldiers attempted to arrest suspects in a bank robbery in Tripoli. The arrest raid escalated when Fatah Al-Islam fighters then attacked Lebanese army posts at the entrance to Nahr Al-Bared camp. This incident is Lebanon's bloodiest internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil wars.
The Lebanese army is reported to have pledged to "finish off" the radical Fatah Al-Islam group. Militants from the radical group Fatah Al-Islam responded with gun and mortar fire. The prospect of a decisive military solution to the stand-off has been played down by the government in recent days because it could trigger violence at other refugee camps, even though Fatah al-Islam has little support among Palestinians. The situation is quite complicated and therefore requires more discussions in order to close the gap between the points of views of the two sides. |
