BEIRUT — Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea asked Sunday for an official version from the Lebanese authorities concerning the explosion that took place Friday evening in the Palestinian refugee camp of Burj al-Shemali, near Sour in South Lebanon. The blast remains shrouded in mystery almost 48 hours after it occurred.
Here's what we know:
• Reports indicate that at least one affiliate of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was killed in the blast, and more than a dozen people were injured.
• According to the state-run National News Agency, the explosion occurred “in an ammunition warehouse belonging to an armed group” in the camp. AFP reported a Lebanese military source as confirming that the explosion occurred in an arms and ammunition depot belonging to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, near a mosque in the camp. However, the organization denied this version, claiming that the explosion took place because of faulty electrical wiring in a warehouse “containing gas and oxygen canisters as well as detergents and COVID-19 disinfectants.”
• “We want the official and complete version of the explosion that occurred the day before yesterday, in the Burj al-Shemali camp in Sour, so that we can act accordingly,” Geagea tweeted Sunday.
• Lebanon has hosted tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, mostly in 12 surviving refugee camps, since they or their relatives were expelled from their homes during the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) that followed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Under an agreement concluded in 1969 in Cairo, the Lebanese army does not have jurisdiction to enter these camps.