Hamas Still In Contact With Hezbollah; Will Also Take Charge Of Yarmouk Refugee Camp Security.

Hamas Still In Contact With Hezbollah; Will Also Take Charge Of Yarmouk Refugee Camp Security.HT: GMBR.

Lebanese media is reporting that Hamas remains in contact with Hezbollah over issues relating to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. According to a report in the Daily Star, Hamas and other unnamed “Palestinian factions will also be temporarily in charge of security at the large Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus:

February 13, 2014 BEIRUT: Hamas remains in contact with Hezbollah to ensure the neutrality of the Palestinian refugee camps in any conflict and will block any threat to Lebanese security emanating from them, a senior official in the movement told The Daily Star.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions will also be in charge of security at the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus temporarily as part of a deal to lift the siege on the beleaguered neighborhood and allow Palestinians who fled the violence for Lebanon to return, he said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Ali Barakeh, the Hamas politburo official in Lebanon, distanced his movement from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and said his party was not involved in the unrest there. He also discussed the security situation in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the party’s relationship with Iran and Hezbollah.

Barakeh said the Yarmouk deal would see securityin the camp handed over to the Palestinian factions, who would ensure that neither the regime nor armed rebels could use it as a base for operations.

‘We don’t want the camp to be used by either side, whether the opposition or the regime,’ Barakeh said. ‘Therefore, this is a transitional phase in which the Palestinian side will be responsible for security.’‘The camp is under Syrian sovereignty but for this transitional phase, the Syrian army will not enter the camp so there are no problems.’

The security arrangement appears reminiscent of the 1969 Cairo Agreement that devolved responsibility for the security of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to the Palestinians.Read the rest here.

In January, the GMBDW reported that the UK Muslim Brotherhood had launched what was described as an unprecedented initiative to aid Palestinian refugees in the Yarmouk refugee camp

The Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp is located outside Damascus and was recently the scene of heavy fighting involving various factions in the Syrian civil war. A December 2012 BBC profile explained how Yarmouk became a Hamas center in Syria.Read the full story here.