Fighting in Lebanon Intensifies and Spreads

While fighting in the Nahr al Bared camp continues to intensify,
a second Palestinian camp is involved in the fighting. The second camp is located near Sidon and the fighting there is in response to the elimination of one of the Fatah al Islam leaders in the Nahr al Bared camp. Via the NYT:

The army said one soldier and two militants were wounded at the Ain al Hilwe camp, near the southern Lebanese town of Sidon, in a fierce firefight that began when angry militiamen sought revenge for the reported killing of one their leaders at the Nahr al Bared camp, in the north.

Ain al Hilwe, a sprawling camp packed with more than 47,000 refugees where armed militias roam the streets, has been seen by security officials as a flashpoint since the recent conflict began. Palestinian leaders in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, but especially in Ain al Hilwe, had been struggling to prevent the fighting in the north with the Fatah al Islam militia, a group inspired by Al Qaeda, from spreading to other camps.

Skirmishes among heavily armed Islamist militias like Fatah al Islam, gunmen with the more secular Palestinian Fatah faction and the Lebanese Army have grown more frequent recently at Ain al Hilwe as the ranks of Islamist militias have begun to swell with fighters, many of whom have come from Iraq.

Witnesses at the southern camp said members of the militant group Jund al Sham, which is sympathetic to and shares members with Fatah al Islam, came out on the streets Sunday, enraged at a report that a senior member known as Abu Riad had been killed in the fighting at Nahr al Bared.

They began firing at an army checkpoint nearby, leading to a three-hour firefight in which militants and the army exchanged heavy machine-gun fire and hand grenades.

Hundreds of fearful residents from areas near the camp fled and descended on Sidon’s city hall, where the authorities began making arrangements for them to spend the night. The electricity inside the camp was cut, apparently by the city, leaving much of the area in darkness.

Once again, this shows the failure to integrate Palestinians into countries where they dispersed, along with the failures of the UNRWA to police the camps to prevent their militarization.



The Palestinian terrorists are not willing to surrender and vow to fight until the last man. The Lebanese military, for the time being, appears willing to help them carry out that goal.