Thousands mourn death of general killed in Lebanon refugee camp

Local residents inspect damage after the clashes. Pic/AP

Thousands of mourners gathered in south Lebanon on Monday for the funeral of a Palestinian military general with the Fatah group, whose killing in a refugee camp in Lebanon fueled fierce sectarian street battles that have killed at least nine people.

Three days of clashes between Palestinian factions at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp have pitted members of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party against Islamist groups accused of gunning down the general, Abu Ashraf al Armoushi, on Sunday.

A Lebanese lawmaker announced a cease-fire agreement late Monday, which appeared to calm the situation, but sporadic gunfire continued afterward. Earlier efforts to broker a cease-fire had failed to stop the shooting and shelling through the narrow streets of the Ein el-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon.

Armoushi's funeral was held in another refugee community, the al-Rashidieh camp where he had lived. "This heinous crime doesn't benefit anyone but the enemy, and that is the Zionists, because they are the primary and only beneficiary" of the carnage in Ein el-Hilweh said Jalal Abuchehab, a Fatah official at al-Rashidieh camp, during Armoushi's funeral.

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