A group of protesters gathered outside the Emirati embassy in Beirut on Monday, Aug. 8, 2022. (L'Orient Today/Richard Salame)
BEIRUT — The Palestine Liberation Organization’s branch in Lebanon announced Wednesday that it would hold a “day of anger and general mourning” on Friday, following the Israeli assault last week on the Gaza Strip, in which Palestinian authorities said Israeli forces killed at least 44 people, including 15 children. The violence reached a halt on Sunday after an Egypt-mediated truce between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel.
Here’s what we know:
• In a statement, PLO called on Palestinian people and organizations in Lebanon “to expand the solidarity campaign in the country through sit-ins and marches,” in order to denounce “the crimes of the Israeli occupation and the ongoing aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and al-Quds,” the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
• The Lebanese government officially condemned Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza. People held sit-ins and demonstrations in several Palestinian refugee camps, waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israeli slogans.
• On Monday, an official from Fatah, the main component of the PLO, was reportedly shot dead by unknown assailants in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near Saida.
• Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, mostly in deplorable conditions in the country's 12 camps, including the largest, Ain al-Hilweh, which serves as home to an estimated 80,000 Palestinians in addition to thousands of others who have arrived in recent years fleeing the war in Syria. Clashes between rival groups often take place in this camp.
• As has been the practice for decades, especially since the 1969 Cairo agreement, the Lebanese Army does not enter the camps and leaves the Palestinian factions there to provide their own security. More than 470,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees in Lebanon with the UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency..