Report: Hamas and Islamist leaders to leave Lebanon for Qatar and Turkey
Wednesday’s talks between President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas led to a “roadmap for addressing the crisis of Palestinian camps in Lebanon on all levels, especially as to the issue of chaos, arms proliferation and the transformation of some camps into havens for outlaws,” al-Binaa newspaper reported on Thursday.
Amid reports that the Hamas Movement has “expressed readiness for cooperation,” the daily said “leaders from Hamas and fundamentalist organizations will leave Lebanon within 15 days, likely to Qatar and Turkey.”
Aoun and Abbas met in Baabda on Wednesday and backed placing all weapons under Lebanese state control, as they discussed efforts to disarm armed groups in Palestinian refugee camps.
A joint statement from the Lebanese presidency said the two leaders shared the "belief that the era of weapons outside Lebanese state control has ended" and backed the principle that arms should be held exclusively by the state.
Abbas' three-day trip is his first to Lebanon since 2017.
The country hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA, many living in overcrowded camps beyond state control.
A Lebanese government source said Abbas' visit aimed to set up a mechanism to remove weapons from the camps. The source requested anonymity as they were not allowed to brief the media.
The statement said the two sides agreed "to form a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee to follow up on the situation of Palestinian camps in Lebanon and work on improving the living conditions of refugees, while respecting Lebanese sovereignty and committing to Lebanese laws."
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese Army stays out of the Palestinian camps, where Abbas' Fatah, its rival Hamas and other armed groups handle security.
Hamas claimed attacks on Israel from Lebanon during more than a year of hostilities involving its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. The clashes, sparked by the Gaza war, largely subsided after a truce in November.
"The monopoly of weapons should be in the hands of the state," Aoun said in an interview with Egyptian channel ON TV on Sunday.
The army, he added, had dismantled six Palestinian military training camps -- three in Bekaa, one south of Beirut and two in the north -- and seized weapons.
Under the November ceasefire agreement, the army has also been dismantling militant group Hezbollah's infrastructure in the country's south.
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