Refugees Decry Lebanese "Punishment"

Concerns are growing over the plight of 40,000 Palestinians trapped inside the bombed-out Nahr Al-Bared camp. (Reuters)

"If the random shelling does not stop... there will be uprisings in all the camps in Lebanon," Sultan Abul Aynayn, the head of Fatah movement in Lebanon, told Agence France Presse (AFP) from the refugee camp of Beddawi.

"No Palestinian or Palestinian faction in Lebanon will accept seeing the Palestinian people slaughtered in a collective punishment as is happening in Nahr al-Bared."

Angry crowds gathered at Beddawi demanding an immediate ceasefire and shouting slogans against the Lebanese army and government.

Similar demonstrations were held at Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Helweh and 12 other camps across Lebanon, with protesters burning tyres and blocking roads.

"We will not let our Palestinian brothers be slaughtered!" shouted one angry protester.

Sixty-six people have been killed in three days of deadly battles between Lebanese troops and militants of Fatah Al-Islam group in the coastal Nahr Al-Bared camp.

The previously little-known group announced a unilateral ceasefire on Tuesday from 1430 (1130 GMT) as long as the Lebanese army stopped shelling.

The army said it would not commit to a formal ceasefire and would continue to respond to fire from militants.

Collective Punishment

Palestinians blasted what they described as a heavy-handed handling of the crisis in a overcrowded camp.

"We are against Fatah al-Islam, but we are also against the collective punishment of our Palestinian people in Nahr al-Bared," Hajj Ahmad, one of two scholars leading Beddawi march, told AFP.

All Palestinian factions had repeatedly distanced themselves from the shadow Fatah Al-Islam, which emerged late last year and has only a few hundred well-armed fighters.

Angry Palestinian refugees said that at first they were against what happened to the army but now they are against its scorched-earth policies that took its toll at innocent people.

"Massacres in Gaza and massacres in Nahr Al-Bared! How many massacres do the Palestinians have to suffer?" cried Umm Hassan, a 42-year-old woman from Beddawi camp.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday urged the militants and the army to ensure civilians and medics are protected.

It called on all parties involved in the fighting to "abide by the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly that civilians not taking a direct part in the hostilities are to be protected against attack."

Al-Jazeera news channel aired footage from inside the camp showing terrified civilians scrambling to escape the devastation.

In the almost deserted alleys, the camera showed a woman holding a baby and running, while a man tries to help another weeping woman with an injured foot.

The footage, the first from inside the battered camp, showed buildings totally damaged by the Lebanese tank and artillery fire and blackened by smoke.

Concerns are growing over the plight of nearly 40,000 Palestinians trapped inside the camp.

After three days of fighting, a UN relief convoy was finally able to enter Nahr Al-Bared and deliver desperately-needed aid.

Relief agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the camp as refugees suffer a lack of electricity and shortages of food, water and medical supplies.

"Two civilian Palestinian refugees were killed when our convoy came under fire," Hoda Samra, the spokeswoman for UNRWA, told AFP.

"We don't know the source of the fire, and we had to leave the camp immediately."

Lebanon is home to about 400,000 Palestinian refugees, half of whom live in about a dozen squalid camps.

The UN says all 12 camps "suffer from serious problems -- no proper infrastructure, overcrowding, poverty and unemployment."