BEIRUT: Hundreds of Palestinian youths protested at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp Tuesday to condemn what they called a media campaign aimed to distort the camp’s image by accusing it of hosting jihadis.
“O Jihadi brother, I speak for the children, orphans and elderly in the camp, to whom you have caused suffering,” a spokesperson from the Islamist Usbat al-Ansar group said at the protest addressing the ISIS-inspired fugitive Shadi Mawlawi, who is wanted for plotting attacks against the Army in north Lebanon.
“O Shadi, there are 100,000 Palestinians in this camp that will not be able to provide you with any help. They will not support you if you are here.”
The spokesman, Sheikh Abu Sharif Akl, addressed both Mawlawi and Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, another fugitive who escaped after his militia fought deadly clashes against the Lebanese Army in Sidon’s Abra neighborhood last year.
“I know that those who helped your exit Abra in June 2013 know where you are,” Akl said in reference to Assir. “I know that you are outside Lebanon, but if you are hiding here, would you release a video showing where you are and have mercy on the camp?”
“The people of this camp will not give you any help,” he added. “If you are in the camp, exit it the way you entered.”
The speech was addressed in front of the demonstrators who belonged to many organizations and parties and held banners condemning the “incitement” against Ain al-Hilweh.
The Islamist figure, however, also addressed “those insulting the camp and threatening to destroy it,” noting the Israeli army destroyed it in 1982 before the people rebuilt it.
“During the civil war, they asked us to support them, and we did. We changed the direction of the whole battle,” Akl said in reference to the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war but without specifying who he was addressing.
The Palestinian factions in Ain al-Hilweh had received information from the Army Intelligence last week that Assir and Mawlawi are both inside the camp.
Although not able to confirm or deny the information, the camp’s leaders denied allowing the fugitives in, stressing that neither Assir nor Mawlawi will be able to use the camp for attacking the Army.
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