It seems that the wave of reconciliation sweeping across Lebanon lately has even entered the country’s most notoriously conflict-ridden Palestinian camp. In response to the surge of violence that has been plaguing the densely-populated and impoverished refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh over the last few months, Palestinian factions announced on October 11 the formation of a multi-factional force to control the area’s sprawling, overcrowded and often dangerous streets.

But on the same day news of the new coalition force broke to the media, a bomb went off in the camp, injuring two people. Imad Karoum, a member of Jund al-Sham, a radical Islamist faction, was the target.
 
Though violence has surged in the camp over the past year, the last few months have witnessed increasingly bitter clashes between Islamic factions such as Jund al-Sham and their secular rival, Fatah. In Ain al-Hilweh, secular and Islamic parties vie for power, pitting the Palestinian Liberation Organization, of which Fatah is part, against parties such as Ansar Allah, the Islamic Moujahid Movement and Osbat al-Ansar. Jund al-Sham, which was disbanded last year in the wake of an armed conflict with the Lebanese army in Taamir in Saida, has regrouped in the last few months. 

As a result of the spiraling violence, “Palestinian faction leaders unanimously decided to bolster security measures by joining efforts and forming a multi-factional committee dovetailed by a military force of intervention,” Mounir Maqdah, head of Fatah in the camp, told NOW Lebanon.

According to Maqdah, the camp’s security apparatus is being revamped by adding police patrol units made up of around 40 men – whose main responsibility will be to ensure peace in the camp by circulating at all hours of the day – to the already-existing Kifah al-Moussalah, or the Palestinian combat divisions that are comprised of about 400 fighters. However, Hajj Maher Oueid, the current head of Ansar Allah, which is financed by Hezbollah, told NOW Lebanon that the patrols have yet to be structured, as factions are still negotiating over basic issues like logistics, budget, weapons and the location of headquarters. He added that the force will be overseen by the camp committee, a sort of legislative arm composed of all Palestinian movements. “The committee has already been formed and will intervene whenever a problem arises,” Oueid said.

But these plans sound strangely familiar. In September of 2007, a similar endeavor for a multi-factional peacekeeping force was launched against the backdrop of the Nahr al-Bared conflict in which the radical Islamist faction Fatah al-Islam fought a bitter 15-week battle with the Lebanese army in a northern Palestinian camp, and the Taamir clashes in Saida between Jund al-Sham and the Lebanese Armed Forces.

But Maqdah pointed out that the new initiative differs greatly from the factions’ earlier attempt last year. “The force formed last year did not include all Palestinian factions, as is the case today. It was essentially comprised of Fatah, Ansar Allah and part of the Islamic Force,” a coalition of all Islamic factions, he said. The new force, on the other hand, is headed by 17 commanders representing all of the camp’s 17 factions – seven from the Islamist parties, seven from the PLO, two from the Islamic Force, and Ansar Allah.

It still remains unclear whether the new force will deploy mixed patrols across the camp, or if it will allow single factions to control their own territories, as was the case in 2007.

 “In addition to the multi-factional force, all Palestinian movements that are actively participating in the committee in charge of the camp’s security are determined to solve together any problem that might arise in the camp,” said Sheikh Khattab, the head of Moujahid Movement who survived an attack on September 23 that killed one and critically injured five.  The actual deployment has been postponed until Abbas Zaki, the PLO representative to Lebanon, returns to the country, in order to sort out the smaller details of the agreement, said Oueid.

Regardless, it seems that at least for now, Palestinian factions are determined to prevent Ain al-Hilweh from spiraling into yet more violence. The camp’s weary and exhausted population certainly hopes that all of their leaders’ reconciliation rhetoric leads to a diffusion of tension and a much-awaited truce.