Conflict Incident Report

Palestinian refugees affected by the recent clashes in south Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh camp protested demanding compensation for their losses, a source told The Daily Star.

Protests were held throughout the camp as refugees used burning tires to block the road leading to Ain al-Hilweh’s vegetable market.

Clashes in Ain al-Hilweh, the country’s largest refugee settlement, rocked the city for several days in early April, leaving at least 10 dead and more than 50 wounded. Schools and aid agencies were forced to close their doors and a sizable number of refugees from the camp were forced to flee to nearby Sidon. The fighting petered out on April 12.

United Nations Relief Works Agency country head Claudio Cordone said the agency was working to assist all those affected by the fighting and help repair the damage to facilitate the return of refugees. Earlier in the day Friday, the head of the Higher Relief Committee Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kheir led a delegation from the committee to inspect the damage left by the clashes around the camp.

Kheir visited the site of renovation works at Sidon Government Hospital and two nearby factories that were affected by shelling after meeting Sidon officials. The hospital was evacuated during the fighting as shells and gunfire landed nearby.

“This public hospital is a charitable hospital for the poor population ... we and the Prime Minister [Saad Hariri] do not accept that it stops working even for a moment. Because of that, we took it on ourselves to repair it,” he said during the tour in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency.

Kheir conducted his tour alongside Sidon Mayor Mohammad Saudi to visit a number of sites affected by the clashes.

“This is not our first visit to this building where the old hospital was damaged,” Saudi said. “We came here to assess the situation.”