Hamas calls for expulsion of all Lebanese fugitives from Ain El Helweh camp

Hamas called for expulsion of all wanted Lebanese nationals from the Palestinian Refugee camp of Ain El Helweh in south Lebanon and urged the Lebanese government to halt the construction of the wall around the camp.

“The political leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] outside of Palestine held an urgent meeting headed by Maher Salah, in which a number of important decisions were taken,” a statement from the movement said on Wednesday .

The movement also called for an investigative committee to be formed to discover who was responsible for the death of Mohammad Zawari. Zawari, a Tunisian scientist and drone expert with ties to the movement, was killed in Tunisia in December 2016.

In respect to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, “especially in Ain al-Hilweh,” the committee criticized the building of a wall surrounding the camp “despite multiple promises that [construction] would be halted.”

The committee said it was committed to securing a safe and stable Lebanon, as well as ensuring the stability of the camps inside the country. “We call for the rebuilding of Nahr al-Bared and the exit of wanted suspects from the camps,” the statement added.

Nahr al-Bared is a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, which was seriously damaged by clashes between the Lebanese Army and Islamist Palestinian factions in 2007.

The 2007 Lebanon conflict began when fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist militant organization, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on May 20, 2007 in Nahr al-Bared, an UNRWA Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli.

It was the most severe internal fighting since Lebanon’s 1975–90 civil war. The conflict revolved mostly around the siege of Nahr el-Bared, but minor clashes also occurred in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon and several terrorist bombings took place in and around Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Fighting ended in September 2007.

Cairo accord
According to the so called Cairo accord the Lebanese armed forces are not authorized to enter the camps and the government claims fugitives are residing within it. Loyalists belonging to various political factions live in the camp.

The Cairo accord was an agreement reached on 2 November 1969 during talks between Yassir Arafat and the Lebanese army commander General Emile Bustani. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser helped to broker the deal.

Under the agreement all the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon were removed from the stern jurisdiction of the Lebanese army’s Deuxième Bureau and placed under the authority of the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command