Army Removes Ain el-Hilweh's Electronic Gates

The Lebanese Army has removed the electronic gates it had installed at the entrances of the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, replacing them with other security measures.

In a statement issued Monday, the Army Command said the move comes out of its “sympathy with the suffering of the Palestinian people in Lebanon, especially those who live in the Ain el-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh camps, and in line with the plan that has been devised by this Command to preserve security inside camps.”

The step also follows “a series of contacts and meetings with those keen on the security of the camps' residents, which resulted in positive cooperation,” the Command added.

It noted that the taken measures are “not against the Palestinian people” but rather aimed at “confronting the threat of a group of terrorists who pose a burden to the residents of the camps in particular and the Lebanese in general.”

National and Islamist Palestinian leaders in the Sidon region meanwhile thanked “everyone who contributed to the removal of the gates.”

“From the very first moment of the installation of the electronic gates on the entrances of the Ain el-Hilweh camp, which were not befitting of our people from the political, national and humanitarian aspects, and were also not befitting of Lebanon and its people and army, the unified political leadership exerted efforts to remove them,” the leadership said in a statement.

It also thanked Speaker Nabih Berri, Sidon's two MPs, Army Commander General Joseph Aoun and the Palestinian embassy in Lebanon.