Clashes at Ain Al-Hilwa

AFTER SIX hours of the worst fighting in a year, a cease-fire was reached in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp on Tuesday. However, Ain Al-Hilwa residents feared another outbreak of the fighting that has left eight people dead and more than 20 wounded.

On Monday, members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah group battled gunmen from the Islamist Al-Nour faction in the camp located on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon.

Representatives of the two groups, as well as delegates from other factions in the camp, met later that evening and agreed on a cease-fire that went into effect at midnight.

The attacks in the camp are believed to be part of a long-running power struggle between Arafat's Fatah group and militant Palestinian factions.

Fatah and Al-Nour gunmen were seen patrolling the streets of what they regard as their neighbourhoods on Tuesday. Few shops in the camp opened for business, while schools remained closed.

Al-Nour is a militant Islamist faction that split from Asbat Al-Ansar group, and is on the US list of terrorist organisations.

Tensions have been running high in the camp since last summer when Fatah began cracking down on Islamists with suspected links to Al-Qa'eda. As a result, Islamist radicals retaliated by attacking Fatah's camp headquarters in August 2002, killing one Fatah member.

Lebanon's 12 Palestinian camps, home to 75,000 refugees, are not controlled by Lebanese security forces and host an array of armed groups.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 22 - 28 May 2003 (Issue No. 639)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/639/re10.htm