One Palestinian was killed and two others injured Sunday in a gunfight between rival political factions at the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, Palestinian sources said.
Members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and the Islamist movement Aasbat al-Ansar fought for nearly half an hour following an argument between Palestinians affiliated with the two movements.
A member of Fatah was shot dead, while another was hit in the legs and admitted to the camp's medical center, the sources said.
Also injured and hospitalized was a woman in her 40s who was hit by stray fire at the camp's vegetable market.
All Palestinian political and military movements are represented at Ain el-Helweh, a camp of 65,000 refugees on the outskirts of the Lebanese port city of Sidon.
Incidents erupt periodically among the groups, most often between Fatah and Islamist groups.
The Aasbat al-Ansar movement is headed by Abu Mehjan, whom Lebanon has sentenced to death three times in absentia. But Abu Mehjan remains out of Beirut's reach at the camp, which Lebanese forces surround but do not enter.
Lebanon also accuses Mehjan's group of provoking clashes last December and January in the northern part of the country between Sunni Muslim fundamentalists and the Lebanese army, which left 45 dead -- AIN EL-HELWEH, Lebanon (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
