Following the Da'ish (IS) takeover of Yarmouk--is Lebanon's Ein el Helweh next?

Following the Da'ish (IS) takeover of Yarmouk--is Lebanon's Ein el Helweh next?

Franklin Lamb

Ein el Helweh Palestinian camp, Saida, Lebanon

What's left of Yarmouk Palestinian neighborhood in Damascus will soon duplicate the mounds of rubble and smell of death in Homs, the old city of Aleppo, Idlib, East Damascus, Deraa and along Route 5 from Damascus to the Turkish border and elsewhere across Syria. Damascus based Palestinian officials, joined by an envoy from the PA in Ramallah, have agreed to "a military solution for Yarmouk", arguing that "dialogue with the Islamists is unrealistic." What, if anything at all, will survive in Yarmouk no one can know.

Some Lebanese refugee camp residents and political analysts predict a similar fate for Ein el Helweh. Fears are mounting in Lebanon that violent and unpredictable extremist Islamist/Jihadists, including Da'ish (IS) and Jabhat al Nusra (JAN) will seek to set up bases in Palestinian camps. According to camp residents and local observers, Islamists have now moved into seven of the 12 camps with the highest level of organization being in Ein el Helweh, the largest refugee camp which was set up in 1948 by the ICRC, some 35 miles south of Beirut in Saida.

This week's camp murder in Ein el Helweh of Marwan Issa, a member of the Hezbollah's Resistance Brigades, who according to camp sources was negotiating an arms deal, has dramatically raised tensions. Militants from Shabab al-Muslim, which includes Fatah al-Islam and Jund al-Sham extremists with claimed links to Jabhat al Nusra are suspected of involvement. That group's spokesperson has expressed al Nusra's intension to expel Hezbollah operatives from Ein el Helweh and from Lebanon.

Among the Palestinian and Islamist factions currently in Ein el Helweh are Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Liberation Front, the People's Palestinian Party, Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, the Arab Liberation Front and the Democratic Palestinian Union (Fida). Pro-Syrian factions include, but are not limited to, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, Saiqa, and Fatah Intifada. Among the Islamic factions among the now nearly 90,000 camp residents (since December 16, 2012, approximately 8000 Palestinians arrived at Ain el Helweh from Syria's Yarmouk, Sayyida Zeinab and Husseinieh camps) are the Ansar Islamic League-Obbat al-Ansar, Mujahid Islamic Movement, Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Al Jihad al Islamic Movement, Jund al Sham, Fateh al Islam, Shabab al-Muslim" ("the Muslim Youth" whose numbers include militants accused of bombings and assassinations in Lebanon), and the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects. In addition, about a dozen smaller al Qaeda affiliated groups plus Jabhat al Nusra and Da'ish (ISIS) according to camp officials. The teeming camp also hosts nearly 50 popular unions, some political. Estimates by camp officials suggest that perhaps a dozen other secret jihadist groups and unknown number of furtive cells are operating even more clandestinely.

Ein el Helweh is currently divided into eight geographic security zones, three of which have become notorious and some controlled by the larger and stronger groups. In the dangerous al-Tawari neighborhood, a stronghold for Islamists, the black flag of the Islamic State is common and often seen alongside a photograph of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi next to one of Osama bin Laden. In some camp alleys Hezbollah flags have disappeared in favor of IS and other jihadist banners.

Arriving jihadists are making promises and are friendly to locals, promising to immediately grant the civil rights to work and to own a home for Palestinian refugees. They also pledge to be serious about liberating Palestine while telling Palestinians that others in Lebanon just talk while playing the Palestinian card for political benefit while not lifting a finger to help local Palestinians. The Lebanese army is also being condemned by many camp residents as it tightens restrictions at Ein el Hilweh's entrances, including now banning construction materials urgently needed for repair and expansion of the increasingly packed dwellings housing additional thousands from Syria, Palestinian and Syrian alike.

The war in Syria has transformed parts of Ain el Helweh camp into a safe haven for jihadists traveling to fight there and training in districts where even the new joint Palestinian Security Force (PSF), set up by the Ramallah based Palestine Authority will not venture. One camp official recalled with grimaces and clinched teeth the 2007 battles between Lebanon's army and Palestinian Islamists in the northern Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli and worries that something similar will come to his camp. Some camp residents report that with young salafists arriving daily, it reminds them of many of the jihadists who suddenly showed up and entered Nahr al Bared not long before that camp war started. The fighting at Nahr al-Bared killed at least 446 people, including 168 soldiers and 226 militants during the 105-day siege of the camp. Between 400 and 500 soldiers were also wounded. Of the more than 215 Fatah el Islam militants captured, dozens remain in Lebanon's notorious Roumieh prison and several groups, including al Nursa and Da'ish have recently vowed to free them all and destroy the fortress like penitentiary.

According to the Mar Elias refugee camp based Palestinian Association for Human Rights which just released its annual report on living conditions of camp residents; there has been no improvement in the living conditions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon over the past year. The PAHR findings make plain that for Ein el Hewleh and other camp residents, existence is becoming ever more fragile as they increasingly suffer from poor education and health services and face legally sanctioned discrimination. As another disheartened generation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon faces personal and academic dead ends, and barred by Lebanese law from the international humanitarian legal right to work and thus take charge of their lives, they are vulnerable to recruitment into militant cells. Some camp officials claim that this crisis may well be resolved if Palestinian youth are granted the civil right to work by Lebanon's Parliament because they will see a future for themselves.

One teacher at an UNWRA school explained to this observer that "When Da'ish moves into Lebanon's Palestinian camps it will be because Lebanon's politicians have created ideal conditions for these parasites. It is as though they are inviting them into our camps!" This observer agrees, for the reason that some of those arriving are much like virulent opportunistic bacteria and Lebanon has created the right amount of light, moisture and oxygen, for affiliated al Qaeda viruses to take hold, grow, and metastasize.

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