AIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon: Palestinian factions handed over weapons from Lebanon’s largest refugee camp on Saturday, a Palestinian official said, as part of a push by the government to disarm non-state groups.
Abdel Hadi Al-Asadi, of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said the umbrella group conducted “the operation of delivering new batches of weapons.”
The Lebanese army confirmed that it received “five truckloads of weapons from the Ain Al-Hilweh camp in Sidon,” the largest in Lebanon, and “three trucks from the Beddawi camp in Tripoli.”
“The delivery included various types of weapons, shells, and ammunition,” the army said in a statement.
An AFP journalist near Ain Al-Hilweh reported Lebanese army vehicles posted around the camp, preventing anyone from approaching.
The densely-populated Beddawi camp, near the northern city of Tripoli, was hit last year by Israeli strikes that killed a Hamas commander, his wife and two daughters, according to the Palestinian militant group.
In Beddawi, an AFP journalist saw three covered trucks leaving the camp, with Lebanese army vehicles waiting for them outside.
Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, both not part of the PLO which has begun handing over weapons, have not announced plans to disarm in Lebanon.
Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA, with many living in overcrowded camps outside of the state’s control.
During a visit to Beirut in May, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas agreed with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that weapons in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps would be handed over to the Lebanese authorities.
The process began last month, when the army received weapons from camps around Beirut and southern Lebanon.
During a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that largely ended with a November ceasefire, Palestinian groups including Hamas claimed rocket fire toward Israel.
The Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a body affiliated with the Lebanese prime minister’s office that is overseeing the arms transfer process, announced in a statement that it is continuing its “meetings with various Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
It said the discussions were part of its “commitment to extending its sovereignty over all its territory.”
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves Palestinian factions to handle security.
Lebanon’s disarmament push has been rejected by Hezbollah, which was the country’s most powerful political force before being severely weakened by the war with Israel.
Beirut’s plan entails the complete disarmament of the border area with Israel within three months, in the first of five phases to monopolize weapons with the army, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi told AFP last week.
Palestinian factions hand over weapons in largest Lebanon refugee camp
https://arab.news/jhgru
Palestinian factions hand over weapons in largest Lebanon refugee camp
- Abdel Hadi Al-Asadi, of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the umbrella group conducted “the operation of delivering new batches of weapons“
- The Lebanese army confirmed that it received “five truckloads of weapons from the Ain Al-Hilweh camp in Sidon“
US condemns Houthi detention of embassy staff in Yemen. Guterres seeks release of all detained UN staff
- US State Department says the sham proceedings only prove that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people to stay in power
- UN Secretary General says the continued Houthi detention and prosecution of UN personnel is a violation of international law
WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS: The US on Wednesday condemned the ongoing detention of current and former local staffers of the US embassy in Yemen by the Houthi movement.
“The United States condemns the Houthis’ ongoing unlawful detention of current and former local staff of the US Mission to Yemen,” US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
“The Houthis’ arrests of those staff, and the sham proceedings that have been brought against them, are further evidence that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people as a way to stay in power,” Pigott said.
Earlier, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Houthi rebels not to prosecute detained UN personnel and to work “in good faith” to immediately release all detained staff from the UN and foreign agencies and missions.
Guterres condemned the referrals of the UN personnel to the Houthis’ special criminal court and called the detentions of UN staff a violation of international law, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
There are currently 59 UN personnel, all Yemeni nationals, detained by the Iranian-backed Houthis, in addition to dozens from nongovernmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions, he said.
He said a number of them have been referred to the criminal court in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. “There were procedures going on in the court, I believe, today and all of this is very, very worrying to us,” Dujarric said.
The court in late November convicted 17 people of spying for foreign governments, part of a yearslong Houthi crackdown on Yemeni staffers working for foreign organizations.
The court said the 17 people were part of “espionage cells within a spy network affiliated with the American, Israeli and Saudi intelligence,” according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency. They were sentenced to death by firing squad in public, but a lawyer for some of them said the sentence can be appealed.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement Tuesday that one of those referred to the court was from his office. He said the colleague, who has been detained since November 2021, was presented to the “so-called” court “on fabricated charges of espionage connected to his work.”
“This is totally unacceptable and a grave human rights violence,” Türk said.
He said detainees have been held in “intolerable conditions” and his office has received “very concerning reports of mistreatment of numerous staff.” Dujarric said some have been held incommunicado for years.
Dujarric said the UN is in constant contact with the Houthis, and the secretary-general and others have also raised the issue of the detainees with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman and others.
The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and since then they have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.
The November verdict was the latest in the Houthi crackdown in areas of Yemen under their control. They have imprisoned thousands of people during the civil war.
