BEIRUT: Six people were killed in clashes as a ceasefire fell apart on Wednesday evening in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, the Palestinian Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch said.

The Ain al-Helweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon, has been rocked by violence since last week.

The clashes have pitted members of the Fatah movement, which controls the camp, against hardline Islamist militants, excluding Hamas.

The renewed fighting on Wednesday “killed six people and wounded 13”, Imad Hallak from the Palestinian Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch said over the phone.

The latest deaths bring to at least 15 the number of people killed in the fighting since it broke out on Thursday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Dozens have also been wounded, it said.

Senior Palestinian officials, including Fatah’s Azzam al-Ahmad and Hamas’s Mussa Abu Marzuk, met late on Tuesday at the Palestinian embassy in Beirut, a joint statement said.

They had expressed their “full commitment to consolidating the ceasefire” and agreed to “work to facilitate the return of those forced from their homes”.

But the ceasefire collapsed on Wednesday, with a correspondent of this news agency in Sidon reporting violent clashes in the evening.

Bullets and shells fell on different parts of Sidon, he said, adding that he saw dozens of Palestinian families fleeing the camp.

Fatah’s Ahmad also discussed the situation with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and other officials on Wednesday.

Ain al-Helweh is home to more than 54,000 registered refugees and thousands of Palestinians who joined them in recent years from neighbouring Syria, fleeing the civil war there.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has said the fighting has displaced hundreds of families.

On Monday evening, a ceasefire was announced by Lebanon’s General Security agency after a meeting between its director and Palestinian security officials, but Tuesday saw brief clashes.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2023