3 More Killed in 17th Day of Strife at Beirut Camps

Shia Muslim militiamen, after crushing a small Sunni Muslim faction, battled Palestinian guerrillas in the Lebanese capital for the 17th straight day Wednesday. Police said three people were killed and 11 wounded in the fight for control of three besieged Palestinian refugee camps.

Both sides used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in the fighting--a marked decline from the firepower used the previous three days, when tanks and multi-barreled rocket launchers were deployed.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, appealed to the United Nations and the International Red Cross to rescue wounded Palestinians from the Sabra, Chatilla and Borj el Brajne camps.

The Democratic Front accused Shia gunners of systematically targeting the eight-story Haifa Hospital in Borj el Brajne. “The wounded had to be evacuated to nearby houses, which are also subjected to shelling,” a statement from the front said.

The camps are shantytowns consisting mostly of small one-story houses jammed closely together on Beirut’s southern edge. They house about 50,000 people and are surrounded by densely populated Shia slums, a stronghold of Justice Minister Nabih Berri’s Amal militia.

Wednesday’s fatalities raised the death count to at least 55 dead in the 17-day battle for the camps, with at least 250 wounded, security sources said.

In related fighting Tuesday, Amal militiamen crushed a small Sunni Muslim militia faction in West Beirut, with at least eight people left dead and 70 wounded.

In what seemed like conciliatory gestures, Berri ordered his militiamen to abstain from looting and offered to turn over to the Lebanese army all neighborhoods conquered by his gunmen.

Muslim radio stations said a 360-man army task force has been formed to move into the enclave of Amal’s defeated foes, called the February 6 Movement, off West Beirut’s Corniche Mazraa commercial district.

Meanwhile, security sources reported that a Frenchman was wounded by gunmen as he escaped a kidnaping attempt in West Beirut.

The Frenchman, identified only as Jean Michel Gofile, reportedly was stopped by gunmen who attempted to force him into a car. When he fled, they opened fire, hitting him in the legs.

Police said they planned to question the man.