Tripoli, Lebanon – People flooded out of a besieged Palestinian refugee camp Tuesday night, waving white flags and telling of bodies lying in the streets and inside wrecked houses after three days of fighting between Lebanese troops and Islamic militants.
Earlier in the day, a relief convoy came under fire when a cease-fire abruptly shattered as U.N. workers tried to deliver food and water to residents. A U.N. official said some who approached the convoy seeking supplies were wounded or killed, but he did not have exact figures.
The nighttime lull that allowed the escape did not appear to be part of an organized truce – and there was no sign the battle was over. The government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said it was determined to uproot the militant group Fatah Islam, which took up residence in the camp late last year.
There was no immediate indication of whether the flight of civilians would give the government a freer hand in bombarding militants holed up in the camp. The army has said its troops were trying to target only militant positions.
Twenty-nine soldiers and at least 20 militants had been killed since the battle began Sunday in the heaviest internal fighting in Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war. But the number of civilian casualties remained unknown because relief workers were not able to get inside the camp.
“The smell of corpses was everywhere. There was no food, water or electricity and they were shooting at us,” Dania Mahmoud Kassem, a 21-year-old university student, said of the past three days in the camp, which is on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli.
Another refugee, Ibrahim Issa Dawoud, said he, his wife and six children – ages 3 to 13 – had taken refuge in a mosque for three days, living off potato chips while Lebanese army tanks and artillery fired at militants armed with mortars and automatic weapons.
The camp is home to about 31,000 Palestinians who live crowded along narrow streets. AP Television News video taken in the camp showed streets littered with damaged vehicles, shards of glass and rubble from wrecked buildings, some in flames from shelling.
Despite broadcast images of Arab troops battering a Palestinian community, Lebanon’s government has received widespread support at home and from Arab countries, some of which have even provided weapons to help the siege.
