Snipers Kill Palestinian, Wound 2 Others at Beirut Refugee Camp Despite Truce

Snipers killed a Palestinian man and wounded two others who were unloading relief supplies at Chatilla refugee camp Monday, hours after a truce was declared to end the long struggle for control of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The three-truck, Kuwaiti-funded convoy was loaded with 40 tons of food, blankets and clothes.

Shortly before the convoy reached the camp, Shia Muslim Amal militiamen and Palestinian fighters exchanged sniper and machine-gun fire, despite their acceptance of the truce arranged Sunday by the Syrian army. The cease-fire agreement went into effect at 8 a.m. Monday.

The truce was called around Chatilla and the sprawling nearby camp of Borj el Brajne after a meeting among Palestinian commanders, Syrian observers and representatives of Amal. Under the agreement, both sides approved a comprehensive cease-fire on all fronts and an end to the five-month-old Amal siege of the refugee camps.

But Amal, Lebanon’s largest Syrian-backed Muslim militia group, said in a separate statement that the accord was conditional on a Palestinian guerrilla withdrawal from several strategic positions overlooking Sidon, a port city 24 miles south of Beirut.

A Palestinian official, however, said no withdrawals could take place before Amal lifts its siege of the camps.