A member of the Lebanese Army intelligence services at the entrance to the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian camp, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Aug.10, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L’Orient Today.)
BEIRUT — The disarmament of Palestinian camps in Lebanon appears to be progressing, even as Hezbollah's disarmament remains a source of tension: On Friday, the Lebanese Army received a new shipment of weapons from the refugee camps of Burj al-Barajneh, Mar Elias and Shatila in Beirut.
This step is part of the Lebanese government's plan to restrict weapon possession to only state forces — that is, the disarmament of Palestinian factions and Hezbollah.
The Palestinian factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), including President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, present in the Beirut refugee camps of Burj al-Barajneh, Mar Elias, and Shatila, have handed over "a third shipment of weapons to the Lebanese Army," said the spokesperson for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abou Roudeina, as reported by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. He specified that this transfer "is part of the joint declaration published on May 21 by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun."
In a video released by the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, Lebanese Army soldiers, backed by tanks, can be seen deployed in front of Burj al-Barajneh camp, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which is one of the 12 officially registered camps in Lebanon. The president of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Ramez Dimashkieh, confirmed to the online newspaper an-Nashra during the day that the operation would take place at 2 p.m. inside the camp.
After a two-month delay, the first cache of weapons was handed over to the Lebanese Army on Aug. 21 near one of the entrances to Burj al-Barajneh. The start of the operation, originally scheduled for June, was postponed due to the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. The government has also pledged to disarm the Hezbollah militia, something Hezbollah firmly rejects.
Thursday, the PLO Palestinian factions present in the Rashidieh, Burj al-Shemali, and al-Bass refugee camps in the Sour region in South Lebanon, handed over their arsenals to the army. Hamas and its allies have not, for their part, handed over their weapons in these camps at this stage.
According to information from our correspondent in the region, eight truckloads of weapons were handed over to the army. These shipments included rockets, mines, artillery shells of various calibers, ammunition, grenades, and anti-aircraft weapons, representing the entirety of Fatah's weapons in these camps.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced in a post on X that he contacted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to "commend the progress made over the past two days regarding the handover of heavy weapons from Palestinian camps to the Lebanese Army."
Salam added that Abbas assured him that "additional batches would be made in the coming weeks from the remaining camps, as previously agreed."
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