JEDDAH, 16 June 2007 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has donated $10 million for distribution to Palestinian families living in Lebanon’s Nahr Al-Bared and Beddawi refugee camps, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Abdul Aziz Khoja said yesterday.
“This donation may be raised to $12 million if the number of refugees goes up,” the ambassador said. The money will be distributed among families who lived in the two camps before fighting broke out between the Lebanese Army and the Fatah Al-Islam militant group.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora thanked King Abdullah for the donation. He told reporters in Beirut: “This amount will be distributed among the Palestinian families at the rate of one million lira each. The check for the amount will be given to the head of the family.”
The donation was announced as six Lebanese soldiers were killed yesterday by an explosion in a building booby trapped by the militants at the Nahr Al-Bared camp.
Four more soldiers were wounded by the blast which destroyed the building. The month-long fighting is Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, killing at least 150 people, including 68 soldiers, more than 50 militants and 32 civilians. The violence has forced thousands of people to flee the camp.
Shell explosions and sporadic bursts of machine-gun fire were heard at the camp — base to Fatah Al-Islam which is led by a Palestinian but includes fighters from other Arab countries.
The army has been fighting in the outskirts of the camp but has not entered its official boundaries. Lebanese security forces are not allowed to enter the 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon under a 1969 agreement.
The Lebanese Army wants the militants to surrender unconditionally and face justice for attacking and killing its troops. Fatah Al-Islam says it is fighting in self-defense and has vowed to fight to the death.
Mainstream Palestinian factions have proposed deploying a force of some 150 fighters to secure part of the camp not held by Fatah Al-Islam and create a “safe haven” for refugees still there, Palestinian political sources said. They said they were still waiting for the army’s response to the idea. Most of the camp’s 40,000 residents fled to the nearby Beddawi camp in the early days of the fighting, which erupted May 20.
