Residents who fled Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp after Palestinian faction clashed over the weekend, walk inside a mosque, in Saida, Lebanon July 31, 2023. (Credit: Aziz Taher/Reuters)
SAIDA — Neighbors rushing a wounded man out of a street market on a vegetable cart. Families sheltering in a mosque overnight. And patients evacuating a nearby hospital — all as rival Palestinian factions traded deadly gun and RPG fire for a third consecutive day on Monday.
Deadly clashes in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, just outside Saida, broke out Saturday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens, camp security sources told L’Orient Today. The fighting ignited between rival Fatah and Islamist factions.
Photos and videos shared with L’Orient Today by residents inside the camp showed streets filled with rubble, torn tarpaulins and standing water, while stray bullets hit buildings as far away as Saida. One shell hit a vegetable market inside the camp, residents told L’Orient Today, wounding a man who was then wheeled away on a wooden cart by his neighbors.
A video showed men maneuvering the cart down a street as gunfire reverberated.
For the third consecutive day, violent clashes ongoing in Ain el Heloue palestinian camp in south #Lebanon. In this video circulating online, a wounded man is carried on a vegetables container. The ambulance was unable to enter the camp due to heavy shooting. #صيدا pic.twitter.com/dtlGkICPo9
— Zeina Antonios (@zeinaantonios) July 31, 2023
Hundreds of families fled the camp on Sunday and Monday, young children and luggage in hand. It was not yet clear Sunday afternoon exactly how many people had been forced to leave the camp amid the clashes, as efforts to evacuate some families close to the frontlines were still underway, according to a L’Orient Today reporter who spoke with volunteers on the ground in Saida.
One volunteer, Ibrahim Hariri from the Rahman aid group, was among the first responders helping displaced families on Sunday. He estimated a total of 400 families had fled their homes since the fighting broke out.
On Monday afternoon, Islamic forces within the camp announced that the Joint Palestinian Action Committee, with the sponsorship of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, agreed to an immediate ceasefire. However, the sounds of gunfire could still be heard inside the camp.
Sheltering in schools
On Monday afternoon, L’Orient Today found dozens of women and children sheltering in the UNRWA-run Nablus School in Saida, several hundred meters outside the camp. A local NGO had helped transport them to the school from a mosque near the camp entrance, where they had slept overnight after fleeing their homes.
Majdi Krayem, head of the Shafaa relief group, told L’Orient Today he and other volunteers transported 12 families from the mosque to the school on Monday and had brought them a doctor, drinking water and some vital medicines.
As they carried out their relief work “beneath the bombs” on Monday, some of the group’s ambulances were struck by bullets, Krayem added.
??? Video footage allegedly showing fierce combat between rival Palestinian factions in Ain al-Hilweh camp today in South #Lebanon. (6 killed, 14+ injured) pic.twitter.com/UvbMRuCDs6
— Matthieu Karam (@MatthieuKaram) July 30, 2023
Inside the UNRWA-run Nablus school, L’Orient Today found 45-year-old Fatima, who said she was trapped by the rubble after a shell hit her home, toppling “half” of her house. She shouted for help from her neighbors.
“I screamed for them to save me,” she said. As the neighborhood filled with smoke, “one of my neighbors carried me out.”
Next to Fatima, Daad, a mother of four, sat with her children. “I fled my house because I was afraid for my children,” the oldest of whom is 17, Daad recounted. They ran toward the same mosque where hundreds of others sought refuge just outside the camp.
“We ran amid the sound of the bullets and the shells... I wasn’t the only one running. Many people were running: children, men and women, everyone,” she told L'Orient Today.
Daad and her children moved to the Nablus school the next day.
Nearby, L’Orient Today found supermarkets handing out food and some basic supplies to the women and children sheltering in the school.
Frequent clashes
Ain al-Hilweh is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Syria.
The densely populated camp is regularly the scene of shootings and clashes, either due to personal disputes or because of tensions between various Palestinian factions.
However, this week’s clashes – between Fatah and Islamist factions – are the deadliest in years.
The fighting prompted UNRWA on Sunday to announce it was suspending all services inside Ain al-Hilweh, while summer schools, the main government office and some main highways in Saida also closed. Saida residents also urged one another to stay indoors as stray bullets threatened those both within the camp and in nearby districts.
The shooting became so heavy on Monday that staff evacuated patients from the nearby Saida Governmental Hospital for safety, the Health Ministry announced.
Camp residents said the intensity of the fighting meant there was no way out except on foot.
“We left our home barefoot after a rocket fell in the building’s staircase,” Hanan, a teenage girl, told L'Orient Today on Sunday evening as she sat on the floor of the mosque-turned-shelter with her family.
Outside, the sound of bullets and RPG fire continued through the evening and into Monday afternoon.
Madeline Edwards contributed to this report from Beirut.