Finally, an international tribunal will be tasked with investigating and prosecuting murder and mayhem in an Arab country. For human rights activists who have railed against continuing impunity for grave crimes in the Middle East, whether committed by Israelis or Arabs, whether orchestrated by states or non-state actors, this should be an occasion for unalloyed celebration, or at least relief. However, EI’s Laurie King-Irani writes, there are worrying aspects of the unprecedented legal initiative of the UN-mandated tribunal charged with investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and other recent crimes. Read more about Tribunals, Trials and Tribulations in Lebanon?
BEIRUT, 31 May 2007 (IRIN) - With no immediate end in sight to the stand-off between the army and Islamist militants in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, and with neighbouring Beddawi camp already full to bursting, aid agencies have delivered relief to several hundred families displaced further to the east and south of the country. According to figures from the UN Palestinian relief organisation UNRWA about 1,500 people, have fled Nahr al-Bared for camps located in and around Beirut. Read more about Aid agencies assist families displaced from Nahr al-Bared camp
LEBANON, 30 May 2007 (IRIN) - The heaviest fighting in a week between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon has raised security concerns for humanitarian workers delivering relief to thousands of Palestinians remaining in the camp. “We have had access every day for the past few days to deliver humanitarian assistance but we remain very worried about security conditions for the civilians in the camp,” Virginia La Guardian, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Beirut told IRIN. Read more about Heavy Nahr al-Bared fighting continues; UN to vote on Hariri tribunal
Today the Lebanese army gave the PLO 72 hours to take out Fatah al-Islam or else the violence will be escalated in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. It is not clear if this means that they will enter or if they will use heavier artillery, but I fear that they will raze the camp. This would not be the first time that it has happened. The Dbeyeh refugee camp was destroyed in 1976 during the Civil War in Lebanon when most of the Palestinian refugees living there were killed or forced out. The shelling in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp has resumed yet again; more Palestinians are trapped inside and many of them seem to be men. Read more about Seventy-two hours
BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Heavy overnight bombardment on Friday of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp by the Lebanese army killed at least four civilians and injured dozens, with eye-witnesses describing scenes of devastation after the military’s week-long clashes with Islamist militants in the once densely populated camp. “Nahr al-Bared looks like Leningrad,” Bilal Aslan, a commander in the military wing of the secular Palestinian faction Fatah, who has spent the week inside the camp, told IRIN, referring to the German World War II siege of the Russian city. Read more about Nahr al-Bared is a ghost town, smelling of death
BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of elderly and sick refugees in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp and neighbouring Badawi camp in northern Lebanon are in urgent need of chronic disease medication currently unavailable to aid agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN. ICRC representatives at the military checkpoint to the south of the camp say thousands of people are in need of treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney failure. Read more about Chronic disease sufferers in refugee camps urgently need medication
As we walked in to Shatila refugee camp in Beirut this morning we were approached by a family from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli who was wandering the streets of the camp in search of a place to live. They fled the violence in their camp and made it to Beirut to seek shelter. This family is one of 100 families who are now residing in Palestinian homes inside Shatila camp, with around 30 people to each two-room flat on top of the already family living in these homes and some of these homes have no electricity. Read more about Nahr al-Bared Flees to Beirut
“In the first three days of the recent events involving the Lebanese army and Fateh el-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp, the Lebanese army committed what would amount to war crimes in a similar fashion to that of the Israeli army in Gaza and in Lebanon last summer, firing on a civilian population indiscriminately. When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them. These are double standards.” Sami Hermez analyzes the Lebanese support for the siege of Nahr al-Bared camp for Electronic Lebanon. Read more about Cheering to the beat of the Palestinians' misery
Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As’ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog on the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region. Read more about Interview: As'ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege
NAHRAL-BARED, 24 May 2007 (IRIN) - Yousef Abu Radi, 12, was hit by shrapnel when a civilian bus fleeing Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, came under fire on Wednesday afternoon. Dozens of civilians have been killed in five days of fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a radical Islamist group based in the camp. At least 50 soldiers and militants have also been killed. Read more about "On the way to the hospital I realised that my mother had died"
