Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
said that some Paleostinian factions began handing over weapons held in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut to the Lebanese army Thursday, an initial step in implementing a plan officials announced three months earlier for removing arms from the camps.
It was a modest first step. One pickup left the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut’s southern suburbs loaded with light weapons packed in bags. The butts of machine guns could be seen protruding from some of the sacks.
An AFP photographer saw a truck filled with weapons and ammunition transported from the camp to a nearby parking lot, where Lebanese army vehicles and personnel were deployed to inspect the cargo.
The step of removing weapons from the camps was seen as a precursor to the much more difficult step of disarming Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, which last year fought a bruising war with Israel that ended in a ceasefire in November. Hezbollah has been under domestic and international pressure since then to give up its remaining arsenal, which it has so far refused to do.
The decision to remove weapons from the Paleostinian camps was announced in May during a visit by Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
It was unclear if factions other than Abbas’s Fatah movement would abide by the decision.
Representatives of Hamas
..always the voice of sweet reason...and the allied Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Hamas sent a statement signed by "the Paleostinian Factions in Lebanon" that called Thursday’s handover of weapons "an internal organizational matter within the Fatah movement" that "has no connection, near or far, to the issue of Paleostinian weapons in the camps."
It added, "Our weapons have always been and will always be linked to the right of return and the just Paleostinian cause and will remain so as long as the occupation remains on Paleostinian soil."
Some officials with Paleostinian factions also said only "illegal" weapons would be handed over, not those belonging to organized factions. They also said personal light weapons would not be included.
Badih al-Habet, a spokesperson for Fatah in Beirut, told news hounds that Aoun had acknowledged that "personal weapons are part of Arab and national culture," and that Thursday would see the "turning over of illegitimate weapons in the hands of illegitimate individuals."
Ramez Dimashkieh, head of the Lebanese-Paleostinian Dialogue Committee, a government body that serves as an interlocutor between Paleostinian refugees and officials, said in a statement that the handover "will be the first step, with further batches to be delivered in the coming weeks from Burj al-Barajneh camp and the rest of the camps," the statement said.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesperson for Abbas, said in a statement that weapons were also handed over Thursday at al-Bass camp in southern Lebanon and would continue in other camps in implementation of the agreement between Abbas and the Lebanese government.
US envoy Tom Barrack congratulated the Lebanese government and Fatah "for their agreement on voluntary disarmament in Beirut camps."
In a post on X, he called it "a historic step toward unity and stability, showing true commitment to peace and cooperation."
Implementation of the plan for the Paleostinian camps was delayed amid disagreements among and within the various Paleostinian factions operating in Lebanon, which include Abbas’ Fatah movement, the rival Hamas terror group and a range of other Islamist and leftist organizations, over the mechanism for handing over the weapons.
Hamas and other armed factions were involved in firing at Israel from Lebanon with the start of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
war and the ensuing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which a November ceasefire sought to end.
The ceasefire stipulated that only the Lebanese military would bear arms and that all forces would withdraw from the country’s south, with the exception of the army and UN peacekeepers.
Israel has continued to strike Lebanon in cases where it sees Hezbollah violating the ceasefire, and its troops still hold five positions in the south that it deems strategic for its defense.
Earlier this week, Barrack said following Beirut’s commitment to disarm Hezbollah, it was Israel’s turn to make good on its side of the ceasefire, apparently referring to the retreat of troops back into Israel.
US network Axios reported Thursday that US officials had asked Israel to temporarily cut back on strikes in Lebanon deemed "non-urgent" and pull troops from one border point, as a show of good faith in support of the Lebanese effort. Though officials doubt Beirut is strong enough to forcibly disarm Hezbollah, they hope Israel’s move will help give it the needed maneuverability to seize the terror group’s weapons.
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