Lebanon to Begin Disarming Palestinian Factions in Refugee Camps, Gov't Committee Says
The process of disarming the Palestinian factions in refugee camps in Lebanon has begun, Ramez Dimashkieh, the chairman of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, announced on Thursday. The process will be carried out in a gradual manner and in full cooperation with Lebanese authorities, a senior PLO official told Haaretz.
The weapons will be collected by Palestinian officials in the refugee camps and handed over to the Lebanese army.
Heavy weapons, including mortars, rockets, explosive devices and heavy machine guns, will also be collected, said the PLO official. "Anyone who thinks this is a process that will take just a few days and be done is very wrong. It's a process that will take time, and delays and problems are to be expected, as well as opposition on the part of Palestinian groups and others," he added.
The process marks the beginning of a plan by the Dialogue Committee, which was set up to produce a plan to disarm the Palestinian factions, as discussed in May, said Dimashkieh.
The committee was convened that month after Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, visited Lebanon and announced, together with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, that Lebanon would not serve as a base for Palestinian groups to attack Israel. They also announced that control of the weapons belonging to the Palestinian factions would be transferred to the Lebanese government.
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to Lebanon in May.Credit: Hassan Ammar/AP
The process will begin with the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut, Dimashkieh said on Thursday. The collection of weapons will continue in the next few days in the al-Buss camp in southern Lebanon, the PLO official added. These camps are the easiest for the PLO and Lebanese army to operate in, which is why the process is beginning there.
But most of the work is expected to take place in the Ain al-Hilweh, Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi refugee camps in northern Lebanon, where Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are influential and operate, along with other Salafi groups that have found shelter there.
A large part of the weapons reached Lebanon and the refugee camps during the civil war in Syria, as well as after the collapse of the Assad regime, according to the PLO official. Many arms dealers took advantage of the chaos and smuggled weapons to groups in Lebanon, including the Palestinian factions, criminal organizations and local arms dealers. "Lebanon remains a jungle of arms and weapons," the official said.
Two weeks ago, the Lebanese government approved a decision stating that all the armed groups operating outside government frameworks would be required to disarm by the end of the year and hand over their weapons to the Lebanese armed forces. The decision was made without a consensus and infuriated Hezbollah and the Amal party. Hezbollah announced that it would not obey the agreement.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam presented the disarmament process as essential to reestablishing Lebanese sovereignty. The government said the decision was a historic step that included "taking the necessary steps to fully extend the state's sovereignty over all its territories, in order to strengthen the role of legitimate institutions, establish the state's exclusive authority to make decisions on war and peace, and ensure that the holding of weapons be limited to the state alone throughout Lebanon."