The Daily Telegraph | 16.9.23
Sidon: Palestinian fighters agreed to a new ceasefire on Thursday, after more than a week of deadly violence in Lebanon’s largest refugee camp.
An AFP reporter in the port city of Sidon said the camp was calm after the truce took effect.
At least 17 people have been killed and 100 wounded in the fighting in Ain al-Helweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of Sidon, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch.
The clashes have pitted fighters of Palestine President Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the camp, against hard-line Islamist militants who are in contact with Hamas.
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves the factions to handle security.
Ain al-Helweh is home to more than 54,000 registered refugees and thousands of Palestinians who joined them in recent years from neighbouring Syria, fleeing the civil war there.
Rivals Fatah and Hamas are the most prominent Palestinian factions. Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, while Hamas controls the Gaza Strip.