Course of launched after go to by Palestinian President Abbas, who stated weapons ‘damage’ Lebanon and Palestine trigger.
A joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee tasked with the removing of weapons held by Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps has met for the primary time to start hashing out a timetable for disarming the teams.
The Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a authorities physique serving as interlocutor between Palestinian refugees and officers, met on Friday with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in attendance.
The group stated that “individuals agreed to launch a course of for the disarmament of weapons in keeping with a particular timetable”.
It added that it additionally aimed to take steps to “improve the financial and social rights of Palestinian refugees”.
A Lebanese authorities supply instructed the information company AFP that disarmament within the nation’s 12 official camps for Palestinian refugees, which host a number of Palestinian factions, together with Fatah, its rivals Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a spread of different teams, might start in mid-June.
Below a decades-old settlement, Lebanese authorities don’t management the camps, the place safety is managed by Palestinian factions.
The assembly comes because the Lebanese authorities faces rising worldwide strain to take away weapons from the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which fought a conflict with Israel final 12 months.
“The message is evident. There’s a new period, a brand new stability of energy, and a brand new management in Lebanon, which is pushing forward with monopolising arms within the arms of the state,” stated Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut.
“It has already begun to dismantle Hezbollah’s navy infrastructure in southern Lebanon, and the following section seems to be the disarmament of Palestinian teams in camps earlier than it addresses the difficulty of Hezbollah’s weapons in the remainder of the nation,” she stated.
Earlier this week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – chief of the Palestine Liberation Group, dominated by his Fatah get together, visited Lebanon and stated in a speech that the weapons within the camps “damage Lebanon and the Palestinian trigger”.
Throughout Abbas’s go to, he and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun introduced an settlement that Palestinian factions wouldn’t use Lebanon as a launchpad for any assaults in opposition to Israel, and that weapons can be consolidated below the authority of the Lebanese authorities.
Al Jazeera’s Khodr signalled that a number of factions seemed to be in opposition to disarmement.
“Whereas Abbas’s Palestinian Authority could also be recognised internationally because the consultant physique of the Palestinian individuals, there are a lot of armed teams, amongst them, Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, who … imagine in armed battle in opposition to Israel,” she stated.
“With out consensus among the many factions, stability might stay elusive.”
