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Vol. 79/No. 15      April 27, 2015

 
Palestinians fight Islamic State
on Syrian refugee camp
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
Reactionary Islamic State forces seized sections of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp April 1 on the edge of Damascus, Syria’s capital. The area had been under siege and bombardment with murderous barrel bombs by Bashar al-Assad’s regime there over the past two years in a drive to root out forces opposed to his dictatorial rule.

Yarmouk was founded in 1957 and became home to some 160,000 Palestinians uprooted by Israeli pressure and wars between Tel Aviv and surrounding Arab regimes. After massive public protests against Assad’s government shook Syria in 2011, the regime responded with military assaults against its opponents, including Palestinian groups in the refugee camp. Many fled a second time, to nearby Lebanon. According to the U.N., about 18,000 civilians, including 3,500 children, remain in the camp facing dire conditions.

“There is no food or electricity or water,” Ahmad, a resident of the camp, told the London Guardian April 10. “Daesh [an Arabic acronym for Islamic State] is killing and looting the camp, there are clashes, there is shelling. Everyone is shelling the camp. As soon as Daesh entered the camp they burned the Palestinian flag and beheaded civilians.”

The Syrian regime has added to the carnage. Between April 2 and 10 Assad’s aircraft dropped 36 barrel bombs on Yarmouk, killing at least 47 people, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Among targets hit was one of the camp’s two hospitals. According to the Observatory, at first Islamic State took control of 90 percent of the camp by defeating fighters mainly from Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis — a Syrian and Palestinian militia opposed to Assad. Members of the Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda branch, assisted Islamic State’s advance by helping them enter Yarmouk through Hajar Aswad, a neighborhood bordering the camp controlled by the Nusra Front.

“Palestinian armed groups alongside the Free Syrian Army are fighting to prevent ISIS [Islamic State] from establishing a foothold in Damascus,” Salem al-Meslet, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Coalition, told Al-Jazeera April 5.

“Our force is now in the center of the camp after confining Islamic State terrorists to only 35 percent of the camp,” Khaled Abdel-Majid, a leader of the joint Palestinian groups fighting Islamic State, told the Australian by phone April 10.

In a statement issued the previous day from Ramallah, in the West Bank, the Palestine Liberation Organization said it refused to be drawn into supporting any military offensive in the Yarmouk camp “whatever its nature or cover,” calling instead “for resorting to other means to spare the blood of our people and prevent more destruction and displacement.”  
 
 
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