Sidon, Lebanon: Nine Palestinians were killed Monday in clashes between two armed groups in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, local sources told AFP.
A Palestinian source in the camp said the groups involved in the clashes were not officially affiliated with any major faction.
He named them as the Ansar Allah group, led by a former member of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, and the Shuhada Al Awda group, whose leader is close to another former Fatah member, Mohammad Dahlan.
A Palestinian official said Shuhada Al Awda’s leader and two of his brothers were among those killed. Another three fighters from the group also died, as well as two gunmen from Ansar Allah.
A Palestinian working for an emergency association was killed while trying to transport one of the more than 20 people wounded in the fighting.
A Fatah official for southern Lebanon said the dispute between the groups began several weeks ago as a result of personal disagreement between their members.
He said the clashes had stopped and efforts were under way to restore calm in the camp.
More than 400,000 Palestinians, mainly descendants of refugees from the 1948 war that attended the creation of Israel, live in camps throughout Lebanon.
Under a long-standing agreement, Lebanese security forces do not enter the camps, where armed Palestinian groups regularly clash with each other.
