Rival Palestinians Battle for Control of Beirut Camp; 24 Die

Fighting between rival Palestinian guerrilla groups on Monday killed at least 24 people as artillery shells pulverized the Borj el Brajne refugee camp, according to police.

They said 67 others were wounded in the battle between Abu Mousa’s Syrian-backed Fatah-Uprising and Fatah guerrillas loyal to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

That raised the known casualty toll since fighting broke out May 1 to at least 151 killed and 594 wounded.

Bodies littered the terrain along the camp’s edges as the two warring factions launched a series of attacks and counterattacks, witnesses said.

“The shelling is the worst we’ve had in years,” said a woman who took advantage of an afternoon lull in the bombardment to flee Borj el Brajne.

Bomb Shelter Hit

Sultan Abul-Ainen, Fatah’s commander in Borj el Brajne, said that 25 people, most of them women and children, were wounded when a mortar shell slammed into the entrance of a bomb shelter.

The fighting shattered a weeklong lull in the inter-Palestinian war for control of the Beirut camps.

Mousa’s fighters overran the nearby Chatilla camp June 27 and had vowed to move into Borj el Brajne in an attempt to crush Arafat’s forces in Beirut.

Police said the fighting forced the closing of the Beirut airport highway, which abuts Borj el Brajne. Flight schedules were not affected and travelers got to the airport through side streets.

Columns of black smoke billowed from the camp. Mousa’s gunners, deployed in Syrian-controlled hills overlooking Beirut, hammered the camp with mortar shells, rockets and 106-millimeter recoilless guns, police reported.

They said Fatah guerrillas responded with mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The fall of Chatilla was a serious setback for Arafat, who has called on Arab leaders to help end the fighting. Abul-Ainen said his fighters are determined to defend Borj el Brajne “to the last man.”

Fatah, the largest group of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, had dislodged Mousa’s followers from Borj el Brajne and the nearby Chatilla refugee camp in fighting over the last two months.

The dissidents regrouped along the edges of the camps and overran Chatilla after a 13-hour battle.