The funeral procession for one of the three victims of the Hamas movement whose funerals took place Tuesday in Saida. (Credit: Mountasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The Palestinian “Islamic Resistance Movement,” better known by its acronym Hamas, held a public funeral for three slain members on Tuesday, in the southern city of Saida. Hundreds of supporters attended, according to our correspondent.
Here’s what we know:
• The three men, Mohammad Walid Taha, Hussein Mohammad al-Ahmad and Omar Mohammad Sahli, were killed Sunday during the funeral of another Hamas member who died in last Friday’s explosion in the Burj al-Shemali refugee camp near Sur.
• A Hamas source told our correspondent, Mountasser Abdallah, that the funeral took place in Saida and not in a Palestinian refugee camp to avoid tensions or security incidents, like the gunfire that targeted attendees of Sunday’s funeral.
• Speaking at the funeral, Hamas’s head of political relations, Ayman Channaa, blamed Palestinian Authority security forces, controlled by the rival Fatah movement, for the men’s deaths. “This crime aims to undermine the stability of the Palestinian camps and will not go unnoticed,” the official said, pleading for the “dissolution” of these security forces.
• In a statement issued Sunday, the Lebanese Army said Palestinian security forces in the Palestinian al-Bass camp, also in Sur, handed over a Palestinian suspected perpetrator of the shootings in Burj al-Shemali, and that an investigation has been opened.
• Hamas had called for “handing the assassins over to the Lebanese authorities and bringing them to justice,” asking the people of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon to strike on Monday in protest. This call was respected in Burj al-Shemali, but unevenly followed in the rest of the camps in Lebanon, according to our correspondent.
• Friday’s explosion in Burj al-Shemali, which resulted in one confirmed fatality so far, reportedly took place at an ammunition warehouse, according to the National News Agency and a Lebanese Army source interviewed by AFP; Hamas has denied this version of events.