AIN HELWEH, Lebanon, 30 August 2004 — Two members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement were killed, including a senior officer, and seven other people wounded yesterday when a demonstration in Lebanon’s largest refugee came under fire, Palestinian sources said.
A Lebanese teenager outside the camp was also killed by a stray bullet, police said. Fatah’s chief in Lebanon, Sultan Aboul Aynain, alleged the shots were fired by a supporter of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on the rally, organized by Fatah in the faction-ridden camp in southern Lebanon in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
A Fatah official said bursts of automatic weapon fire targeted an office of the movement in the centre of the camp just as the march reached it.
Fatah officer Mohammed Al-Hayja, who had the rank of colonel, was hit by several bullets and died immediately, while another member of the group, Mohammed Al-Aatawt, succumbed to his wounds in hospital in the neighboring city of Sidon. Lebanese police said 14-year-old Mariam Qoteiche was killed by a stray bullet from the camp as she stood on the balcony of a hospital in Sidon, where she was visiting a relative.
On learning of the death of Hayja, Fatah supporters fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in the air, heightening the tension in the camp.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qorei is to hold talks with senior officials in Egypt this week over Israel’s planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and the possibility of a new truce by armed factions.
“We always coordinate and discuss with our Egyptian brothers and this is part of our continued coordination with them,” Qorei told reporters after a meeting of his Cabinet in Ramallah.
Qorei also said the international community’s indifference to the plight of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli prisons raises questions over its desire for a Middle East peace agreement.
“The blindness and silence that the world has been showing toward the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes which has been taking place for the last 15 days can only put question marks against the whole peace process,” Qorei told reporters.
The prime minister’s comments came as the fast protest, designed to improve the conditions of the estimated 8,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, entered its third week. Around 3,200 prisoners are currently refusing to eat after 800 being held in Ashkelon in southern Israel suspended their protest, claiming the authorities there had agreed to some of their demands.
