AIN EL-HILWEH, Lebanon, 20 May 2003 — At least four people were killed and 14 wounded when militants battled with Palestinian gunmen yesterday in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, witnesses said. Analysts said the clash amounted to a battle for control of south Lebanon’s Ain El-Hilweh camp. Friction between Islamists and Palestinian factions in the camp has been mounting for weeks.
Witnesses said hundreds of fighters battled each other with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in a fight that erupted ahead of the funerals of two people killed in an ambush on Saturday. The clashes pitted an Islamist group against forces loyal to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, one of several armed Palestinian factions that control most of the camp.
Hospital sources said at least four people died and 14 were hurt. Witnesses said one of the dead was a woman. A Fatah source said the bodyguard of a Fatah man the militants blame for inciting Saturday’s ambush was shot dead. “To Jihad!” a mosque linked to the militant group blared over its loudspeaker, while others called for peace. “Please stop firing as Israel is the only beneficiary,” another mosque blared, saying it spoke for civilians.
Witnesses said armed Islamists, some masked and others wearing headbands, appeared to have taken control of parts of the main street and were patrolling it. By evening, they controlled several streets. Other Islamists were trying to calm the situation. “We and Hamas are trying to undertake efforts to ease the tension, because Palestinian-Palestinian conflict has a negative effect on the Palestinian cause,” an Islamic Jihad Lebanon official said.
Agence France Presse in Beirut said a Lebanese photographer working for the news agency was shot in the leg and taken to hospital. Fatah sources said two of its members were also hurt. Lebanon’s Army and security services do not enter the camp — site of a string of tit for tat bombings and firefights — in which Islamist groups and fugitives from justice have taken up residence.
The militants often fight Palestinians they accuse of collaborating with the Lebanese authorities against them. Tension mounted sharply in the camp after Islamist leader Abdullah Shreidi was ambushed on Saturday. Shreidi, who is wanted by Lebanon, was critically wounded in the attack. He is the son of the late founder of Osbat Al-Ansar, an obscure group whose assets Washington ordered frozen as part of its campaign against Al-Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities. The group denies links to Al-Qaeda, and residents of the camp doubt it has significant influence or assets in Lebanon or abroad.
The crackle of gunfire and powerful blasts could be heard in Sidon, the nearby southern Lebanese coastal town. Schools in the camp were shut and most stores kept their shutters down as the fighting raged. Shreidi, three of his bodyguards and a passerby were hit by automatic rifle fire Saturday near an office belonging to Fatah, the dominant force in the 80,000 strong Ain El-Hilweh camp. One bodyguard and the bystander were killed in the shooting which seriously wounded the chief of Osbat Al-Nour, a breakaway faction of Osbat Al-Ansar, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
They were on their way home from the funeral of the fundamentalist chief’s relative and family member, Ibrahim Shreidi, gunned down earlier Saturday by unknown assailants. The Shreidis are one of the biggest clans in Ain El-Helweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and members of the clan can be found in rival organizations.
Fatah’s leader in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Aynain, said Sunday his group was responsible for shooting the Osbat Al-Nour chief, who he accused of terrorizing the camp. Shreidi’s entourage had taunted and provoked Fatah members to shoot at them when they passed by Saturday, he claimed. He told AFP on Fatah was “forced to decide his (Shraidi’s) fate”. Aynain blamed Shreidi for the deaths of seven Fatah members and four civilians in the past few years.
Shreidi’s supporters for their part pledged to throw the body of the “traitor” Munir Maqdah, head of Fatah’s militia in the camp, to the dogs. Several wanted Lebanese Muslim fundamentalists are believed to have found refuge in Ain El-Helweh with Osbat Al-Nour, which is said to be growing in influence.
