Palestinians rush from their Lebanon camp

Thousands of Palestinian refugees, caught for days in the crossfire between government troops and Islamic militants with alleged Al Qaeda ties, began fleeing their embattled camp Tuesday night as a lull in fighting took hold.

Intense street battles broke out around the northern Lebanese refugee camp this week after an army raid seeking militants from a group called Fatah al Islam who were wanted in connection with a bank robbery.

The fighting gave way to a shaky cease-fire Tuesday afternoon as reports of the growing civilian toll were aired on Arabic-language television. At least 60 soldiers, militants and civilians have died, the deadliest outbreak of internal violence since the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990. Many more civilians in the Nahr el Bared camp, including children, suffered shrapnel and gunshot wounds.

Hundreds of refugees, some on foot wearing pajamas and slippers and others in cars and buses, gathered Tuesday night at the nearby Badawi camp, where they were given shelter in school buildings.

“We saw people leaving, so we decided to flee on foot,” Rasmiya Dawoud, 60, said as she sat in a classroom with her daughter and other relatives. “We were scared. But at that point we had nothing to lose. For the last days we were living in terror and fear. Our children were hungry, thirsty. Our homes were destroyed.”

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Volatile climate

The battle between the Sunni-led government’s army and Sunni radicals does not fit neatly into the larger conflicts -- such as those between Sunni and Shiite Muslims -- now shaping regional alliances.

Lebanon’s political climate has become so volatile that many feared that this week’s fighting could spiral out of control. The outcomes of the country’s battles tend to reverberate throughout the region.

Militants with Fatah al Islam had holed up in Nahr el Bared months ago, stockpiling sophisticated weapons. At 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the group called a unilateral cease-fire, which the government respected.

Relief workers began to attend to the 40,000 Palestinians stranded in the seaside camp, which lacks electricity and faces supply shortages. The Associated Press reported that a relief convoy was hit by gunfire as it attempted to make a delivery.

In the hours before the cease-fire, troops with tanks and artillery bombarded the militants’ positions in and around the camp and an adjacent market town. Bullet holes pocked the camp’s whitewashed buildings.

Armored personnel carriers rumbled past. Truckloads of troops poured into the area, setting up blockades and vehicle checkpoints. Relief workers ferried shellshocked families to safety. A plainclothes Lebanese intelligence official barked orders over a cellphone.

“Fatah al Islam has gathered in the center of the camp,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’ve lost the ability to move beyond the camp.”

The army declared the operation a success.

“We’re tightening our noose around the camp,” said a ranking Defense Ministry official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’ve regained the positions at the entrances. We’ve taken control of the points of direct clashes.”

But televised reports about wounded Palestinians and allegations that the Lebanese army had prevented relief vehicles from entering the camp clearly stung the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. The army dispatched an official to a rooftop where television stations had established camera positions, asking them not to film Lebanese forces bombing the camp.

Televised images of an Arab government shelling a Palestinian refugee camp have rattled the Arab world.

“The military situation is difficult because the army cannot use its absolute power for fear of killing too many civilians, especially because the camp is densely populated,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general. “Politicians are not sure they can accept the collateral damage.”

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Medical supplies short

Camp residents described bodies lying in the streets for the last few days. Physician Ali Boos said he ran from house to house treating leg wounds without anesthesia or disinfectant and putting in stitches with regular needle and thread.

“The number of wounded cannot even be counted,” he said after arriving at Badawi. “We can smell the dead bodies.”

“This is a second Sabra and Chatilla massacre,” he said, referring to the hundreds of Palestinian refugees killed in 1982 by Christian militiamen allied with Israel.

Government officials, locked in a consuming confrontation with Shiite opponents, rejected the accusations.

“Our government was the first government to address the issue of improving the situation of those inside the camp,” said Nayla Mouawad, minister of social affairs.

About 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, mostly in a dozen or so camps where Lebanese security forces are forbidden to enter under a 1969 Arab League accord.

Some residents of other camps set tires on fire Tuesday to protest the shelling of Nahr el Bared, a relatively prosperous enclave that has benefited from trade with nearby Syria and its reputation for relatively cheap consumer goods.

Most of Fatah al Islam’s members hail from other Arab countries. Government officials have called the militants a tool of Syrian intelligence, which has long played a role in Lebanese affairs.

But many camp residents, often the target of prejudice in Lebanon, say they feel they were unfairly made scapegoats.

“This is what the Lebanese government wants,” said Nibal Bashir, a 28-year-old Palestinian electronics repairman being treated at a hospital in a nearby refugee camp for a bullet wound to the thigh. “They want to kill all the Palestinians.”

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daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Rafei reported from Nahr el Bared and Times staff writer Daragahi from Beirut.