President Mahmoud Abbas today discussed in telephone calls the situation in Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp, south of the southern Lebanon seaport of Sidon, with the head of the Lebanese caretaker government Najib Mikati and the Acting Director General of the Lebanese Public Security, Major General Elias al-Bisari. In a phone call he received from Mikati, the President affirmed that the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is temporary until a time the related United Nations resolutions are implemented, stressing support for what the Lebanese government and army are doing to preserve law and order and to maintain the calm and the cease-fire. In the phone call from Major General al-Bisari, the President discussed the current events in Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp and the need to maintain calm and the consolidation of the ceasefire, stressing support for what the Lebanese security forces are doing to maintain law and order. Calm returned today to Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp after the fundamentalist group known as Jund al-Sham, which is based in the camp, violated the ceasefire that was announced two days ago during a meeting of the Palestinian Joint Action Committee at the Palestinian embassy in Beirut. Jund al-Sham militias attacked Fatah and Palestinian National Security Forces headquarters in the camp killing one person and wounding three others. The fighting erupted on Sunday following the assassination of the Palestinian National Security chief in the camp, Major General Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, and three of his companions. Ain al-Hilweh is the temporary home to 55,000 Palestinians who were pushed out of their homes and lands in Palestine during the 1948 Nakba or catastrophe when Israel was created and who are waiting for their right to return to their homeland as called for in United Nations Resolution 194 adopted on December 11, 1948.
Source: En – Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA