Israel’s strike on Ain Al-Hilweh camp stirs up grim memories for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

Residents and rescue teams inspect the damage following an overnight Israeli airstrike on the Ain al-Helweh camp. (AFP)
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Updated 15 October 2024
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Israel’s strike on Ain Al-Hilweh camp stirs up grim memories for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

  • On Oct. 1, an airstrike at the home of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander leveled four buildings and claimed five lives
  • Since the 1970s, the sprawling refugee camp has been the turf of militant Palestinian factions with a history of violent clashes

LONDON: Israel’s military campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has not left the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ain Al-Hilweh, unscathed, dredging up grim memories of previous attacks and convulsions of violence in the nation’s camps.

On Oct. 1, an airstrike, which leveled four buildings and killed at least five people, marked the first time Ain Al-Hilweh had been targeted since October last year when cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began.

The strike was reportedly aimed at the home of Munir Al-Maqdah, a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — a coalition of armed groups associated with Fatah, one of the major Palestinian political parties. Early reports indicated that Al-Maqdah was not home at the time, and his condition and whereabouts remain unknown.

Located 3 km southeast of the coastal city of Sidon, Ain Al-Hilweh occupies approximately 170 acres, or 688,000 square meters. According to UN figures, it is the most densely populated camp in Lebanon, housing more than 55,000 people as of 2023.




Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike on the village of Deir Qanoun. (AFP)


The camp was established by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1948 to shelter refugees, most of whom escaped northern Palestine after the Nakba — the mass displacement of Palestinians following the Arab-Israeli war.

Since its establishment, Ain Al-Hilweh has frequently been a target of Israeli assaults and a battleground for regional rivalries, including between Palestinian factions.

“In a nutshell, Ain Al-Hilweh is the largest camp with an ongoing battle for its control,” Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese economist and political adviser, told Arab News.

Jasmin Lilian Diab, director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University, said Ain Al-Hilweh “has long been a focal point for Palestinian resistance.”

She told Arab News: “The camp has evolved into a symbol of Palestinian resilience and resistance, not only against Israeli occupation but also in the broader struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination.

“The significance of Ain Al-Hilweh lies in its role as a base for various Palestinian political factions and militant groups, including Fatah and others aligned with different political ideologies and resistance.”

In 1974, Israeli jets bombed seven Palestinian camps and villages in south Lebanon, including Ain Al-Hilweh, which suffered the heaviest bombardment. The bombing came in retaliation for an earlier attack by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on a school in Maalot, northern Israel.

Less than a decade later, in 1982, during the second invasion of Lebanon, Israel pounded the camp with airstrikes, leaving it almost fully destroyed. The attack took place following an attempt on the life of the Israeli ambassador in London.

Diab said the camp was “a target of Israeli military operations, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, due to its association with the Palestine Liberation Organization and other militant groups that carried out attacks against Israel.

“The camp has also been a staging ground for armed resistance, drawing attention from both Israeli and Lebanese authorities,” she said.




Mourners attend a funeral for the victims of an Israeli airstrike in the Mount Lebanon village of Maaysra. (AFP)


Israel had justified its invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s on the grounds that Palestinian fighters operating near Israel’s northern border needed to be eliminated. However, after conducting its operations in the border region, Israeli troops advanced all the way to Beirut.

In the aftermath of the invasion, Yasser Arafat, the then-leader of the PLO, was forced out of Beirut. Likewise, more than 2,000 Syrian troops pulled out of the capital, having been stationed there since 1976, when President Hafez Assad intervened to prevent the defeat of his Maronite Christian allies in the civil war.

“After the Israeli invasion and the evacuation of Yasser Arafat from Beirut, there was a gradual attempt by pro-Syrian Palestinian factions to take over and get rid of what was left of Fatah and the PLO,” said Shehadi.

“Syria was finishing the job started by Israel of eradicating the PLO and later, it seems that Hezbollah took over that job. The red line between Syria and Israel was at Zahrani just south of Sidon, below which no Syrian presence was tolerated.

INNUMBERS

• 489,292 Registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as of 2023.

• 31,400 Palestinians displaced to Lebanon from Syria since 2011.

(Source: UNRWA)

“The War of the Camps was part of the (broader) battle for Syrian control (in Lebanon), leading to pro-Syrian factions gaining control north of Saida (Sidon), while Fatah and the PLO sought refuge in camps south of Saida, mainly in Rashidieh and Burj El-Shemali.”

The War of the Camps, which took place from 1985 to 1988 during the Lebanese civil war, was an extension of the political struggle between Syria and the PLO. Syria and its Lebanese ally, the Amal movement, sought to disarm Palestinian camps to prevent another Israeli invasion.

After Israeli forces began a phased withdrawal from Lebanon in February 1985, Amal took over West Beirut that April. Amal then besieged and later attacked the Palestinian camps in Beirut, including Sabra, Shatila, and Burj El-Barajneh.

Amal, supported by the government of President Assad, demanded that Palestinian camps relinquish their weapons and hand over security responsibilities to its ranks.

In 1986, the conflict in Beirut spilled over into Tyre and Sidon, where Amal also besieged the Palestinian refugee camps of Rashidieh, Mieh Mieh, and Ain Al-Hilweh and cut off aid, including food and medicines.

Seeking to pressure Amal to lift the siege on Rashidieh, Palestinian guerrillas attacked and captured the town of Maghdouche, an Amal stronghold close to Ain Al-Hilweh. The fighting intensified between Amal and Palestinian groups despite international calls for a ceasefire.




Mourners carry pictures of their relative, Hassan Fadel, who was killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike. (AP)

“Ain Al-Hilweh plays a crucial role in the complex relationship between Israel, Lebanon, and Palestinian factions, as well as in the broader Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Diab of the Institute for Migration Studies.

“The camp has also been implicated in regional rivalries, with different Palestinian and Islamist groups receiving backing from various state and non-state actors, further complicating its internal politics and drawing in regional powers.

“In this sense, Ain Al-Hilweh represents not only a physical space of resistance but also a microcosm of the larger Palestinian struggle for statehood, refugee rights, and regional geopolitical contestations.”

Notorious for its lawlessness, Ain Al-Hilweh was not only the site of conflicts with external parties but also a frequent hotspot for clashes between the various armed factions within the camp. “Over the years, it has been a point for internal conflicts between these factions,” said Diab.

In 1990, Fatah, then led by Arafat, gained control of the camp after three days of fighting with the Abu Nidal Organization, which had split from Fatah in 1974.

After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, which engulfed the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, thousands of Palestinians fled to Lebanon, many of them cramming into Ain Al-Hilweh.

By March 2014, more than 52,000 Palestinians displaced from Syria had sought shelter in Lebanon, according to UN figures.

With even more armed groups now residing in the camp, violence returned in 2017, when Palestinian factions and a Daesh-affiliated militant group, Fatah Al-Islam, engaged in fierce clashes.

Violence between the camp’s Fatah fighters and extremists broke out again in July 2023 and continued until September of that year, claiming at least 30 lives, leaving hundreds injured, damaging infrastructure, and forcing thousands to flee.

Palestinian officials had said street battles started after an unknown gunman tried to kill an Islamist militia leader, known as Mahmoud Khalil, but instead killed one of his companions.

On July 30, 2023, a top Fatah commander in the Palestinian National Security Forces, Abu Ashraf Al-Armoushi, and three of his companions were reportedly slain by Islamist militants.

As the fighting in the camp intensified and stray bullets hit residential buildings in Sidon, commandos from the Lebanese Army were deployed near the camp’s entrance.




A father and his daughter living in a shelter for displaced families wait to receive food aid from “Carneo”, a local restaurant in Beirut. (Reuters)

Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, condemned the clashes and called on “the Palestinian leadership to cooperate with the army to control the security situation and hand over those meddling with security to the Lebanese authorities.”

He also blamed outside forces for their “repeated attempts to use Lebanon” as a battleground for settling scores “at the expense of Lebanon and the Lebanese.”

The violence nevertheless resumed in September, with at least 10 people killed during five days of intense fighting.

Today, as Israel ramps up its assault across Lebanon, residents of the 12 official Palestinian camps in the country fear renewed violence — both from the outside and from within.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon already experience extreme poverty and face severe restrictions on their movement, employment opportunities, and rights to education and healthcare.

More attacks on the camps, which could trigger fresh bouts of internal turmoil, are likely to worsen their predicament.

 


Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says

An Israeli fighter jet fires a rocket as it flies over an area near the Syrian capital Damascus on April 30, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 03 May 2025
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Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says

  • Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war

CAIRO: Israeli strikes targeted the vicinity of Syria’s Damascus, Hama and Daraa countryside late on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The strikes on Damascus countryside killed one civilian and injured four others in Hama, SANA added.
Israel’s repeated strikes on Syria act as a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus, which Israel views as a potential threat on its border.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes on Syria on Friday, saying it targeted “a military site, anti-aircraft cannons, and surface-to-air missile infrastructure.”
The Israeli army has previously said it targeted Syria’s military infrastructure, including headquarters and sites containing weapons and equipment, since mainly Sunni Muslim Islamist fighters toppled President Bashar Assad in December.
Earlier on Friday, Israel bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus, in its clearest warning yet to Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities of its readiness to ramp up military action, which has included strikes it said were in support of the country’s Druze minority.
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

 


Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town

Updated 02 May 2025
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Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town

  • RSF paramilitaries say they took key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state
  • Area is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade

CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group claimed a “sweeping victory” Friday saying it took control of the key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state in a fight that intensified a day earlier.
A victory there by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, would mark a strategic loss for Sudan’s military in its war with the paramilitary force as the territory is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade.
The Sudanese army didn’t immediately comment on its social media channels on whether it lost Al Nahud to its rival.
Sudan’s Culture and Information Minister Khalid Ali Aleisir said on his Facebook account on Friday the RSF committed crimes against defenseless citizens in the town, looting their properties and destroying public facilities.
The RSF said on its Telegram channel Friday that it destroyed vehicles belonging to the army and seized their weapons and ammunition during the battle for Al Nahud. The paramilitary group also claimed that it managed to secure the city’s facilities and markets after defeating the army.
The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of the capital Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.
RSF attacks in Al Nahud have killed more than 300 unarmed civilians, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union said on Facebook on Friday. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that figure.
The Resistance Committees of Al Nahud condemned the RSF attacks, which it said began Thursday morning.
“They invaded the city, stormed residential neighborhoods, terrorized unarmed civilians, and committed cold-blooded murders against innocent civilians whose only crime was to cling to their dignity and refuse to leave their homes to the machine of killing and terror,” the Resistance Committees said Thursday on Facebook.
An army loss of Al Nahud would impact its operational capabilities in Northern Kordofan state, according to the Sudan War Monitor, an open source collaborative project that has been documenting the two-year-war. Al Nahud is a strategic town because it’s located along a main road that the army could use to advance into the Darfur region, which the RSF mostly controls.
Al Nahud also shelters displaced people fleeing from Al-Obeid, Umm Kadada, Khartoum and El-Fasher — the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Darfur Victims Support Organization.
Meanwhile, in North Darfur, the fighting has killed at least 542 people in the last three weeks, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. This figure includes the recent RSF attacks on El Fasher and Abu Shouk displacement camp, which killed at least 40 civilians.
“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Türk i n a statement on Thursday.
Türk also mentioned “extremely disturbing” reports of extrajudicial killings committed by RSF, with at least 30 men in civilian clothing executed by the paramilitary fighters in Al Salha in southern Omdurman.
“I have personally alerted both leaders of the RSF and SAF to the catastrophic human rights consequences of this war. These harrowing consequences are a daily, lived reality for millions of Sudanese. It is well past time for this conflict to stop,” said Türk.
The war in Sudan has killed at least 20,000 people, but the real toll is probably far higher. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries.
Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and warns it could spread further, putting millions at risk of starvation.


Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

Updated 02 May 2025
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Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

  • The sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people

TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Friday handed down lengthy prison sentences against former officials, including former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, a senior figure in the opposition Ennahda party, on charges of facilitating the departure of militants to Syria over the past decade.
TAP state news agency quoted a judicial official as saying that the sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people.


West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

Updated 02 May 2025
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West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

  • Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada

JENIN: On a torn-up road near the refugee camp where she once lived, Saja Bawaqneh said she struggled to find hope 100 days after an Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank forced her to flee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the north of the territory since Israel began a major “anti-terrorist operation” dubbed “Iron Wall” on Jan. 21.
Bawaqneh said life was challenging and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive, along with Tulkarm and Nur Shams.
“We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,” she said.
“Nothing is clear in Jenin camp even after 100 days — we still don’t know whether we will return to our homes, or whether those homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
Bawaqneh said residents were banned from entering the camp and that “no one knows ... what happened inside.”
Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada.
In early March, it said it had expanded its offensive to more city areas.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above Jenin’s streets blocked with barriers made of churned-up earth.
Wastewater pooled in the road outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Farha Abu Al-Hija, a member of the Popular Committee for Services in Jenin camp, said families living in the vicinity of the camp were being removed by Israeli forces daily.
“A hundred days have passed like a hundred years for the displaced people of Jenin camp,” she said.
“Their situation is dire, the conditions are harsh, and they are enduring pain unlike anything they have ever known.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders in March denounced the “extremely precarious” situation of Palestinians displaced by the military assault, saying they were going “without proper shelter, essential services, and access to health care.”
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps “has not been seen in decades” in the West Bank.
The UN says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the offensive would last several months and ordered troops to stop residents from returning.
Israeli forces put up barriers at several entrances of the Jenin camp in late April, AFP footage showed.
The Israeli offensive began two days after a truce came into effect in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Two months later, that truce collapsed and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza, a Palestinian territory separate from the West Bank.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 925 Palestinians in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry.

 


Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 02 May 2025
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Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

  • Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza
  • In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.
Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.
Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP.
AFP footage in the aftermath of a strike on Bureij camp showed Palestinians searching for casualties in the rubble of a flattened building.
“They gave us no warning, no phone call — we woke up at midnight to smoke, rubble, stones, and shrapnel raining down on us,” said Mohammed Al-Sheikh, standing among collapsed concrete slabs.
“We pulled out martyrs — bodies and limbs from under the rubble.”
Another six people were killed in a strike targeting the Al-Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, civil defense official Mughayyir added.
In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defense agency reported.
Across the Gaza Strip, at least 21 other deaths were reported in similar attacks, the agency said.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
The war erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli government says its renewed campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge it puts them in mortal danger.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire which had come into effect on January 19.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.
On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse.”
“This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further,” its deputy director of operations, Pascal Hundt, said in a statement.