25,000 Flee Besieged Beirut Camps

As many as 25,000 Palestinians have fled their homes after a week of attacks on three refugee camps by Shia Muslim militiamen and Lebanese soldiers determined to prevent a resurgence of Palestinian power.

Unknown numbers of dead and wounded people are still thought to be trapped in the camps, from which the International Red Cross so far has been barred, Palestinian sources said.

The Amal militiamen and troops used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Sunday in continuing efforts to flush out Palestinian fighters at the Borj el Brajne, Sabra and Chatilla Palestinian refugee camps, witnesses said.

Police put the known toll at 361 killed and 1,658 wounded since the camps were attacked a week ago, not counting those who have yet to be evacuated from the camps.

Palestinian officials said that as many as 25,000 Palestinians have fled to Druze-controlled areas. They said those fleeing include Palestinians who left their homes outside the camps in fear after gunmen beat and abducted Palestinians in the center of mainly Muslim West Beirut.

Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt, an ally of the Shias, mediated a cease-fire for 2:30 p.m. Sunday to allow Red Cross ambulances to go into the three camps to evacuate the wounded. The Druze, members off an offshoot Muslim sect, have remained neutral in the camp fighting.

The truce failed, however, and the Red Cross convoy waited 1 1/2 hours, then drove off.

“We could not enter the camps because the cease-fire never happened,” said Sophie Martin, the Red Cross’ Swiss chief in Beirut. “As soon as the cease-fire is settled, we will enter.”

Talks on Fighting

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel held talks with Arab League Secretary General Chedli Klibi on ways to stop the fighting.

And in Amman, Jordan, Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat said that Soviet leaders have given assurances in a letter that they will not allow the destruction of the camps and that they have approached Syrian leaders to help stop the attacks.

A PLO spokesman said that Arafat, who left late Sunday for a meeting in Tunis, Tunisia, of PLO leaders, has urged Saudi Arabia and Libya to intervene to stop the “massacre” of Palestinians.

Abu Moujahad, the chairman of Chatilla’s Popular Committee, said the refugees are being housed in nine centers in West Beirut and are receiving help from the Druze and U.N. relief officials.

Those who managed to flee said the camps have no food, little water and no facilities to save the injured. All of the 30 people questioned spoke of arbitrary killings of Palestinians in the camps.

“All the Palestinian wounded (in the camps) must be dead by now,” said a 33-year-old teacher, who escaped from Sabra after he was hit by a bullet in the chest. He said he had helped bury dead fighters before he was wounded himself.

“All we could do with the injured was bury them,” he said.

Amal militiamen and troops barred reporters from the camps. Escorting one reporter out of the center of Chatilla, a militiamen said that what was going on within the camp “is our business, not yours. You can come back in a couple of days.”

In Damascus, George Habash, leader of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called on Palestinian fighters to continue their defense of the camps.

“I call on you to show utmost courage in defending the camps . . . and history will record with disgrace those who carry out such barbaric onslaughts against you,” a statement quoted him as saying.

A statement issued in Beirut by the Moscow-oriented Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine described the Shia attacks as “a seven-day massacre” and vowed revenge.

It said that squads from Amal, the main Shia militia, have rounded up about 1,000 Palestinian civilians from the camps and elsewhere in West Beirut and herded them into Amal interrogation centers.

Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, indirectly condemned the Shia attacks in a statement Sunday.

“They are displacing people and then loot their houses and their savings. Is this jihad?” he asked.

Jihad , the Arabic word for “holy war,” is used by the Shias to describe their military actions.

“They are killing people. They are oppressors in this society,” he declared in the first government comment on the fighting in the camps.