Tensions are escalating in Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp. In the past, people feared a clash between the Fatah Movement and Islamist groups, but today they are more concerned about a possible confrontation between Islamists themselves. Such tensions may threaten the Palestinian initiative to isolate the refugee camps from ongoing internal and regional conflicts and undermine the memorandum of understanding signed between different Islamist factions that have come together under the group known as the Muslim Youth.
In a meeting held on April 28 at the Palestinian embassy headquarters in Beirut, members of the parties behind the Palestinian initiative to pacify and protect the refugee camps (19 nationalist and Islamist factions) agreed on a security plan for Ain al-Hilweh, located on the outskirts of Saida in southern Lebanon. Chief of the Palestinian National Security Forces, Sobhi Abu Arab, will today head a security meeting to create a preliminary plan.
According to a Hamas representative in Lebanon, Ali Barakah, a Palestinian higher political committee expects to receive the first draft of the plan within a week, so it can add its own remarks before presenting it to Lebanese political and security forces.
Barakah explained that the plan’s main goal is to support the security forces who have already been deployed in the camp about a month ago. He also revealed that the idea first came up during a recent meeting with the director of General Security, Abbas Ibrahim.
However, concerned parties have yet to agree on the plan’s details and how it will be implemented. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Machnouk discussed the prospects of such a plan during a meeting with heads of security bodies held in Saida last week. He also inquired about the feasibility of deploying the army inside the camp and setting up police stations in some of its neighborhoods.
Yesterday’s meeting followed a recent spate of violence in the camp amid rising fears of clashes between moderate and extremist Islamists.
Following the assassination of Sheikh Orsan Suleiman, Ain al-Hilweh residents expected Fatah to take action. However, Osbat al-Ansar was the faction that stormed into the strongholds of rival Islamist groups Jund al-Sham and Fatah al-Islam, and deployed gunmen in their neighborhoods overnight Saturday.
Osbat al-Ansar issued a statement later saying that Islamist forces “won’t allow anyone to compromise the camp’s security and the lives of its residents,” warning against “those seeking to spread sedition.”
In a phone interview with Al-Akhbar, Osbat al-Ansar leader, Sheikh Abu Tarek al-Saedi, attributed these actions “to many reasons that have been accumulating,” saying that Osbat is worried that some forces are no longer focusing on Palestine “but on Lebanon or on each other.” Though Saedi refused to give a particular reason behind the deployment of their gunmen, informed sources revealed that it was in retaliation for the shooting of a senior Osbat official identified as Taha Shreidi in Safsaf Street.
Shreidi escaped unharmed but on the next day, Osbat arrested a suspect identified as Ali Abdul-Jabbar belonging to Bilal Badr Islamist Brigade that has already - along with others close to the emir of Fatah al-Islam, Oussama al-Shahabi - targeted Shreidi.
Bilal Badr Islamist Brigade and Fatah al-Islam have both been verbally attacking Osbat and the Jihadi Islamist Movement in private sessions and on social networks for coordinating with Lebanese political forces, mainly with Hezbollah, saying that security bodies allow them to leave the camp whenever they want.
Abu Sharif Akl, an Osbat spokesman, attacked in his Friday sermon those promoting a culture of dissent among Muslims, saying that there is a hit list with leading sheikhs’ names on it. He also linked the assassination of Shehabi’s nephew to the call of Interior Minister Nouhad al-Machnouk and the new chairman of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Hassan Mneinmneh, to disarm the camps.
Since the assassination of Ahbash official, Sheikh Orsan Suleiman, in the camp, Akl has been moving around with a gun on his side, while Sheikh Jamal Khatab has his own armed bodyguards.
In a ten minute audio message, Shahabi refrained from accusing any party of killing his nephew Ali Khalil, but stressed that his group is ready to retaliate against all aggressions.
According to informed sources, Palestinian and Islamist factions now fear a new string of assassinations and car bombs. While they ruled out an imminent clash between moderate and extremist rival Islamist groups, they expressed their concern about the involvement of parties from outside the camp.
In the meantime, Mneinmneh hosted the first Palestinian delegation since he took office and was handed a petition advocating the right of return, rebuilding the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp and refusing displacement.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.