In the almost deserted market of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el Heloué in southern Lebanon, Ismaïl Akkaoui has vegetables on a stall, waiting for customers who would dare to come out despite the clashes.
The intermittent fighting between Palestinian factions since Saturday, the most serious in this camp for years, has left 11 dead and forced hundreds of families to flee.
“I have to leave the house to sell vegetables despite this terrifying situation. Otherwise, my family will not have enough to live on,” says this man, his features hollowed out, in front of his stall.
Few traders followed his example on Tuesday, as the whistling of bullets was heard intermittently, according to an AFP correspondent.
Among them, Moukhtar spread out on a table bags of bread bought in the nearby town of Saida.
He says he doubled the amount of bread. “People are buying two bags instead of one for fear of a deterioration in the security situation,” he said.
In the Hittin district, carcasses of burnt cars bear witness to the violence of the fighting.
Most of the neighborhoods of the camp bear the name of the Palestinian villages from which the inhabitants of Aïn el-Héloué originate, descendants of the refugees who came to Lebanon in 1948.
Clashes with automatic weapons and anti-tank rockets continue intermittently, despite the announcement of a ceasefire on Sunday evening.
The traces of the fighting are particularly visible on the houses close to the front lines between the extremist Islamist groups and the fighters of the Fatah movement, the main Palestinian organization.
An AFP correspondent saw dozens of armed men, including snipers, on both sides in the streets littered with bullet casings.
Hundreds of families fled the camp, taking refuge in Saida, some settling in a mosque in the city.
Under a 50-year-old agreement, made during the power of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, the Lebanese army does not enter the refugee camps where the Security is provided by the Palestinian factions.
As a result, there are lawless areas within the camps and Aïn el-Héloué, the largest camp in Lebanon is known to have hosted extremists and those on the run.
Shells fell around army checkpoints at the entrances to the camp, prompting schools and other public institutions to close in Saida, the major city in southern Lebanon.
Clashes between rival groups often take place in Aïn el-Héloué where 54,000 Palestinian refugees live, to which are added thousands of other Palestinians who have fled the war in Syria.
More than 450,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees in Lebanon with Unrwa, but the actual number of those still residing in Lebanon is around 250,000, according to UN estimates, due to mass emigration .
Mounir al-Maqdah, a senior Fatah figure assures that all parties want to put in place a lasting ceasefire.
“We are working to end violations” of the ceasefire, he said.
Steps are being taken to strengthen the joint security force in charge of controlling the camp, along with the “removal of armed men from the streets, and the formation of a commission of inquiry to identify those involved”, according to him.
The Palestinian official, however, expresses the fear that the aim of these clashes is to “push the inhabitants of the camp into an exodus”.
01/08/2023 18:16:36 – Aïn el Hiloué (Lebanon) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
