A United Nations agency has suspended services at the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon to protest against the presence of armed fighters around its four schools and other facilities within the area.
Deadly clashes broke out at the Ein el-Hilweh camp last month after a gunman from the hardline Junud al-Sham armed group tried to assassinate Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the Palestinian political faction, Fatah, forcing hundreds to flee.
Khalil’s companion, Fatah commander Abu Ashraf al-Armouchi was fatally shot and several of his aides were killed. Al-Armouchi was in charge of security inside Ein el-Hilweh.
The camp is home to more than 63,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who were forcibly displaced from their homes in 1948 in the run-up to Israel’s creation.
“The agency does not tolerate actions that breach the inviolability and neutrality of its installations,” United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement.
It said that schools in the camp were unlikely to be available for 3,200 children at the start of the new school year.
Original from www.aljazeera.com