SIDON: Three days of fighting in south Lebanon’s Ain Al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp have left at least 11 dead and dozens wounded, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday.
Clashes broke out over the weekend between members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s secular Fatah movement and Islamist militants based in the camp, Lebanon’s largest located in the coastal city of Sidon.
Renewed gunfire and shelling on Monday shook the camp, said an AFP correspondent in Sidon, sending frightened residents fleeing.
“According to reports, 11 were killed and another 40 were injured, including one staff member” of UNRWA, said Dorothee Klaus, the UN agency’s director in Lebanon.
She added in a statement that UNRWA has “temporarily suspended” operations in the camp due to the fighting.
Palestinian factions said they had agreed on a truce on Sunday but it did not hold, with fighting continuing with automatic weapons and rocket fire.
Officials said five Fatah members and one militant had been killed in the initial violence over the weekend.
There was no immediate word on the identities of the other fatalities.
“UNRWA urgently calls on all parties to immediately return to calm and take all measures necessary to protect civilians, including children,” Klaus said.
The statement noted that “two UNRWA schools have sustained damaged” and more than 2,000 Ain Al-Helweh residents had been forced to flee.
An AFP correspondent on Monday morning saw dozens of people, mostly women and children, leaving the camp carrying light luggage, while others took refuge in a nearby mosque.
Shells also fell outside the camp, AFP journalists said, with a nearby hospital evacuating patients and shops in Sidon closing fearing further escalation.
By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in the country — now bustling but impoverished urban districts — leaving the factions themselves to handle security.
“We fled from the scene of the fighting, shells are raining in the streets,” a 75-year-old woman told AFP, requesting anonymity for security concerns.
She said armed factions were carrying weapons “to fight Israel, not to fight each other and become displaced.”
Ain Al-Helweh, now home to more than 54,000 registered refugees, was created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war that coincided with Israel’s creation.
In recent years, they have been joined by thousands of Palestinians who had been living in Syria and fled the war there.
Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon rarely confront Israel nowadays, but fighting between rival factions is common in Ain Al-Helweh.
The latest violence began late Saturday, killing an Islamist and injuring six others, a Palestinian source inside the camp had told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The next day, a Fatah military leader and four of his colleagues were killed during a “heinous operation,” the group said.
Tiny Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA.
Most Palestinians, including more than 30,000 who fled the war in neighboring Syria after 2011, live in one of Lebanon’s 12 official camps, and face a variety of legal restrictions, including on employment.
UN reports 11 killed as clashes rock Lebanon Palestinian camp
https://arab.news/bt2hf
UN reports 11 killed as clashes rock Lebanon Palestinian camp
- Clashes erupted on Sunday after militants shot and killed a Palestinian military general from the Fatah group
- Some residents in Sidon neighborhoods near the camp fled their homes as stray bullets hit buildings
Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized for interfering in police matters
JERUSALEM, Nov 14 : Israel’s Attorney General told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his apparent interference in police matters, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday.
The news channel published a copy of a letter written by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in which she described instances of “illegitimate interventions” in which Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting general policy, gave operational instructions that threaten the police’s apolitical status.
“The concern is that the government’s silence will be interpreted as support for the minister’s behavior,” the letter said.
Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
Ben-Gvir, who heads a small ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, wrote on social media after the letter was published: “The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General.”
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem
- Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities
LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents are under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli bulldozers and a military police force.
The ministry said that “(Israeli) occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.”
Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area.
Al-Bustan said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family.
Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000 Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
In past years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search of the three-millennial “City of David.”
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters
- Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack
CAIRO: An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defense center in Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding that rescue operations were ongoing.
Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city, health ministry reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Lebanese civil defense official Samir Chakia said: “The Civil Defense Center in Baalbek has been targeted, five Civil Defense rescuers were killed.”
Bachir Khodr the regional governor said more than 20 rescuers had been at the facility at the time of the strike.
‘A symbol of resilience’ — workers in Iraq complete reconstruction of famous Mosul minaret
- Workers complete reconstruction of 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque
- Tower and mosque were blown by Daesh extremists in 2017
High above the narrow streets and low-rise buildings of Mosul’s old city, beaming workers hoist an Iraqi flag into the sky atop one of the nation’s most famous symbols of resilience.
Perched precariously on scaffolding in high-vis jackets and hard hats, the workers celebrate a milestone in Iraq’s recovery from the traumatic destruction and bloodshed that once engulfed the city.
On Wednesday, the workers placed the last brick that marked the completed reconstruction of the 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque. The landmark was destroyed by Daesh in June 2017 shortly before Iraqi forces drove the extremist group from the city.
Known as Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback,” the 45-meter-tall minaret, which famously leant to one side, dominated the Mosul skyline for centuries. The tower has been painstakingly rebuilt as part of a UNESCO project, matching the traditional stone and brick masonry and incorporating the famous lean.
“Today UNESCO celebrates a landmark achievement,” the UN cultural agency’s Iraq office said. “The completion of the shaft of the Al-Hadba Minaret marks a new milestone in the revival of the city, with and for the people of Mosul.
“UNESCO is grateful for the incredible teamwork that made this vision a reality. Together, we’ve created a powerful symbol of resilience, a true testament to international cooperation. Thank you to everyone involved in this journey.”
The restoration of the mosque is part of UNESCO’s Revive the Spirit of Mosul project, which includes the rebuilding of two churches and other historic sites. The UAE donated $50 million to the project and UNESCO said that the overall Al-Nuri Mosque complex restoration will be finished by the end of the year.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay celebrated the completion of the minaret by posting “We did it!” on social media site X.
She thanked donors, national and local authorities in Iraq and the experts and professionals, “many of whom are Moslawis,” who worked to rebuild the minaret.
“Can’t wait to return to Mosul to celebrate the full completion of our work,” she said.
The Al-Nuri mosque was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Seljuk ruler Nur Al-Din.
After Daesh seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of its so-called caliphate from inside the mosque.
Three years later, the extremists detonated explosives to destroy the mosque and minaret as Iraqi forces battled to expel them from the city. Thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting and much of Mosul was left in ruins.
US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal -two political sources
- The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Hezbollah
BEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri on Thursday to halt fighting between armed group Hezbollah and Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details.
The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts have yet to yield a result. Israel launched a stepped-up air and ground campaign in late September after cross-border clashes in parallel with the Gaza war.
