A Fatah colonel, Abu Ashraf al-Armouchi, was killed on Sunday after being caught in an armed ambush in the al-Bustan district of the Palestinian refugee camp of Aïn el-Héloué in southern Lebanon. He was taken to al-Rai hospital in Saida, where he succumbed to his injuries.
In the afternoon, the Lebanese army reported on Twitter that one of its soldiers had been wounded by shrapnel from a “mortar shell that fell on one of the military posts” resulting from the clashes in Aïn el-Héloué, adding that his condition was stable.
Furthermore, Saida’s governmental hospital has been evacuated, following the violence of the armed clashes. Later in the day, the Jezzine governmental hospital announced that it was ready to host the evacuated patients.
According to a al-Hadath TV station’s count, the clashes in the camp, Lebanon’s largest, which is outside government control, left six people dead and tens wounded.
Clashes between rival groups often take place in Aïn el-Héloué, home to 54,000 Palestinian refugees, as well as thousands of other Palestinians who have fled the war in Syria.
“An Islamist from the al-Shabab al-Muslim group was killed and a leader of the group was among the wounded,” said a Palestinian source inside the camp, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.
The clashes pitted Fatah members against Islamist groups in the camp, the source said.
The incident occurred around two months after similar scuffles killed a Fatah member in the same camp.
