Meeting of Palestinian factions in Lebanon postponed amid dispute over disarmament

Meeting to be held after Eid Al Adha as rival factions accuse Fatah-dominated Palestinian leadership of taking decision without them

A man rides a scooter through an alley in the Burj Al Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. Reuters

A meeting of Palestinian factions from the 12 official refugee camps in Lebanon will be held next week, a member of the Fatah faction told The National on Tuesday, amid criticism from rival groups that they had been excluded from consultations over the decision for all factions to surrender their weapons to Lebanese authorities.

“There was supposed to be a meeting today or tomorrow with the Joint Palestinian Action Committee, which includes all factions – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Islamist forces – but most of the leadership in the Hamas-PIJ coalition is currently travelling outside Lebanon,” said Abu Iyad Al Shaalan, a member of Fatah’s leadership in Lebanon.

“So, the meeting has been rescheduled for immediately after Eid.”

Despite the absence of Hamas and PIJ from the decision-making process, a delegation led by deputy head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Azzam Al Ahmad is in Beirut to discuss the next steps towards implementing a multiphase plan to disarm Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps in the coming weeks. The plan seeks the surrender of medium to heavy weaponry but will allow Palestinian security forces to keep light arms.

Hamas’s leadership in Lebanon voiced dissatisfaction with what it suggested was a unilateral decision by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, but has made no further public comment.

“Right now, there’s no fixed appointment for after Eid,” a Hamas source told The National. “We haven’t been informed of the disarmament plan in any official capacity.”

The source said “bypassing” factions outside the Fatah-dominated PLO, such as Hamas and the PIJ, has “upset many of the factions”.

“No one knows the factional structure of the camps except the Palestinians of Lebanon. Everyone who is speaking on behalf of the Palestinians in Lebanon is coming from Ramallah, and they don’t know how to administer the camps or maintain the balance,” the source said, referring to the Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank where the PA has its headquarters.

Mr Al Shaalan said the disarming the refugee camps would begin in mid-June as planned, despite “a few voices of disagreement here and there, but they don’t affect Fatah or the PLO’s decision”.

“Everyone is comfortable with the plan that is being discussed and with the proposals being made,” he said, referring to a series of meetings between the PLO delegation and Lebanese officials.

The issue of disarming Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which fall outside Lebanese state control, has long been a contentious one. Armed groups such as Hamas and PIJ – aligned with Hezbollah and committed to armed resistance against Israel – have previously used Lebanon as a launch pad for attacks across the border. They also have popular support in many of the camps.

Disarming the camps comes under a broader initiative by Lebanese leaders to limit and disarm non-state actors. But the memory of Lebanon's 1975–1990 civil war – during which Palestinian militias were among the main participants, alongside a series of Lebanese factions and international proxies – still lingers for many Palestinians, who view weapons as essential for self-defence. Weaponry also holds deep symbolic value for Palestinians in Lebanon, many of whom were expelled from their land in 1948 during the Nakba, which marked the creation of what is now Israel. For them, arms represent not only protection but a continuing struggle to return to their homeland.

The PA is internationally recognised as the governing body of parts of the Palestinian territories, but its legitimacy is contested by many Palestinians. In Lebanon, Palestinian refugee camps are not governed by the PA, but by inter-factional committees – some of whom do not pledge loyalty to the PA.

Under a long-standing arrangement, the Lebanese army does not enter the Palestinian camps, leaving security to be handled by the factions themselves. That arrangement may be coming to an end with the moves towards disarming the camps.