Armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon’s refugee camps to begin handing over weapons today: Committee
Armed Palestinian groups based in Lebanon’s refugee camps will start handing over their weapons to authorities today, as per a May agreement, according to a joint committee tasked with implementing Lebanese government policy relating to Palestinian refugees.
“Today marks the beginning of the first phase of the process of handing over weapons from inside the Palestinian camps,” Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee chairman Ramez Dimashkieh said in a statement.
The process would start with the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut, where an initial batch of weapons would be transferred to the Lebanese army, Dimashkieh added.
The transfer comes after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beirut in May and struck an agreement with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that all arms in Palestinian camps would be surrendered to the state.
But while Abbas’s Palestinian Authority exercises power over the Fatah movement, that does not extend to the remaining factions in the camps, most notably Hamas.
Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA, with many living in overcrowded camps outside of the state’s control.
Fatah leader in Lebanon says cooperating with disarmament
As we’ve been reporting, armed Palestinian factions inside Lebanon’s refugee camps began handing over weapons to the state today, part of an agreement that was reached in May.
Badie al-Habit, a leading Fatah member in Burj al-Barajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern suburbs of Beirut, says that he can only speak for his party’s involvement in the disarmament.
“This concerns the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian national security forces, and the Fatah movement. As for other factions in other locations with different affiliations, the decision [to hand over weapons] is in other places,” he told AFP news agency.
“In principle, what will be handed over is illegal weapons. The arms entered the camp illegally and pose a danger to our people in the camp and to the Lebanese neighbourhoods. Some of the weapons are old and some are new.”
