About a week and a half after the cessation of hostilities in the “Ain al-Hilweh” Palestinian refugee camp located in southern Lebanon, a joint Palestinian security force, including members and officers, deployed by the main groups, deployed (Monday) in two main locations that became lines of contact during the recent confrontations.
A video spread on social media showed a number of officials from the Palestinian forces in the camp touring a neighborhood, and behind them was a group of armed elements wearing military uniforms. The commander of the joint Palestinian security force inside Ain al-Hilweh, Major General Mahmoud Al-Ajouri, told Asharq Al-Awsat that 45 members and officers were deployed to the two sites smoothly and without any problems. He pointed out that this security force, which currently numbered 165 members and officers belonging to the main Palestinian groups and factions, had been strengthened, explaining that during the next 48 hours, the Palestinian political forces are supposed to meet to determine the date of the next step, which is withdrawal from schools.
Al-Ajouri added: “There were hopes for the deployment of elements of the force in (Al-Tiri neighborhood), but that requires a political decision,” stressing the response of all concerned forces to the process of deploying the security force, hoping that “we have taken practical steps towards blocking the way to a new round of fighting.” ».
The Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, made unremitting efforts to establish a ceasefire after the second round of fighting that the camp witnessed this summer, between the Fatah movement and extremist groups, which lasted a week and resulted in 15 deaths and more than 150 wounded.
As for the first round, it began at the beginning of last August, and resulted in the killing of 13 people, including a Fatah leader, in an ambush.
Fatah sources are not optimistic
Sources in the Fatah movement inside Ain al-Hilweh did not seem very optimistic about the completion of the second phase of the cessation of fighting agreement, which stipulates the exit of extremists from schools, and then the handover of the killers of the Fatah leader, Major General Abu Ashraf al-Armushi.
In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, the sources described the step of deploying the security force in the two aforementioned locations as “a detailed step that neither advances nor delays; The dominance in the areas where the deployment took place is for the Ansar League, which has no major problems with Fatah.” She added: “The basis is to withdraw from schools and achieve progress on the issue of extraditing the killers.”
Hamas: A step in the right direction
For his part, the official spokesman for the Hamas movement, Jihad Taha, told Sputnik, “The deployment of the joint security force, which includes all national and Islamic forces, including the Fatah and Hamas movements, in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, A step in the right direction, and a practical translation of what was recently agreed upon under the auspices of the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri.
Taha pointed out that “the joint force will be stationed in sensitive areas inside the camp, and the aim of this is to provide reassurance, stability and security, and to have a state of calm in the camp that will enhance the return of the displaced and deal with the repercussions of all the battles left by the recent clashes.”
He believed that “until this moment, the initiative is proceeding according to what was decreed for it, through Palestinian-Palestinian coordination, coordination between all Palestinian national and Islamic components, and coordination with all Lebanese official and party bodies that are accompanying the implementation of President Berri’s initiative.”
The Fatah movement is the largest faction in the camp, in which the Hamas movement and other factions are also present. Extremist groups from several neighborhoods in the camp take refuge in them, regardless of their nationality, as those fleeing justice in Lebanon resort to. The Lebanese security forces do not enter the Palestinian camps according to an implicit agreement between the PLO and the Lebanese authorities. The Palestinian factions undertake a kind of self-security inside the camps through a joint security force.
2023-09-25 16:49:20
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