BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army pushed into the last pocket controlled by Fatah al-Islam militants inside the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on Thursday. Lebanese soldiers engaged in “house-to-house” fighting with militants in the densely built camp, capturing new ground as army engineers worked to clear booby-trapped buildings.
A heavy and continuous artillery bombardment, focusing on the northeastern sector of the old camp, intensified in the early hours of Thursday morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. The National News Agency (NNA) reported that the army had captured nine buildings inside the camp, while army engineers had blown up a booby-trapped building. Army bulldozers also opened a path allowing army tanks to penetrate.
An army source told The Daily Star on Thursday that one soldier, 24-year-old Corporal Hassan Mohammad Ghosn from Shmustar in Baalbek, had died in the hospital from injuries sustained in fighting two days ago. No other casualties were reported.
The source said the army was continuing to close in on the militants and further reduce the area under their control, but despite the ferocious fighting only small advances had been made.
The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation reported that fresh troops had been arriving at the camp since late Wednesday night. Media reports have interpreted this as preparation for a final and decisive push to end the fighting by August 1, Lebanese Army Day.
On Thursday the army recovered the body of a soldier who died on Sunday when a booby-trapped building collapsed on him. The fighting, which began on May 20, has killed at least 246 people, including 120 Lebanese soldiers.
More than 85 Fatah al-Islam fighters and 41 civilians have also been killed and about 100 people are estimated to remain inside the area controlled by the militants, a figure that includes roughly 60 fighters and 40 women and children, mostly militants’ family members.
Under the cover of tank shelling, the army surrounded a small section of the Saasaa neighborhood where a number of militants were hiding in a shelter. Soldiers and militants were reported to be fighting house-to-house in the Maghareba neighborhood of the camp, the NNA report said.
The army on Wednesday discovered several underground bunkers in the camp, where it found weapons caches of assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition and detonators, as well as ready-to-eat meals.
The army said in a statement there was no going back on its decision to refer the militants to the judiciary, calling on militants to surrender and allow their families to choose their own fates freely.
Sheikh Mohammad al-Hajj, a member of the Palestinian Clerics Association undertaking mediation efforts between the army and militants, told The Daily Star that Fatah al-Islam had agreed to hand over its arms, dissolve the group and hand over “certain members” to the army, but the army is insisting on “no negotiations until the group hands over Shaker al-Abssi and Abu Hureira.”
“We were scheduled to go into the camp on Wednesday to meet with Shahine Shahine, but due to the fighting we could not,” Hajj said, adding that the association was in constant contact with the army and that meditation efforts were continuing.
Palestinian-Lebanese Dialogue Committee chief Khalil Makkawi said a government plan to rebuild the Nahr al-Bared camp would be put before donor countries. Makkawi made the announcement while visiting Druze spiritual leader Naim Hassan on Thursday.
Makkawi said when the fighting at the camp ended, the camp would be the responsibility of the government - including the camp’s security - and not in the hands of any Palestinian faction, as had been the case.
He said the more than 30,000 displaced camp residents who left after hostilities began would return to the camp once reconstruction was completed, adding that the reconstruction effort would take into account environmental standards.
“We are carrying out all preparations to rebuild the camp in the same spot that it originally occupied,” Makkawi said. He said it was impossible for the terrorism spawned in Nahr al-Bared to arise in other camps because of Palestinians’ awareness of the threat.
Makkawi said the government planned to undertake several development projects at other refugee camps to improve living conditions.
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