Five Palestinians were killed on Monday in clashes between two armed groups in the Palestinian Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, a medical source told AFP.

“Five dead and more than 20 injured were brought to hospital after clashes between armed groups,” the source in the Palestinian Red Crescent hospital in the southern city of Sidon said.

Both Mieh Mieh and Ein al-Helweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, are in Sidon.

A Palestinian source in the camp said the groups involved in the clashes were not officially affiliated with any major faction.

He named them as the Ansar Allah group, led by a former member of the Fatah faction, and the Shuhada al-Awda group, whose leader is close to another former Fatah member, Mohammed Dahlan.

The medical source said Shuhada al-Awda’s leader and one of his brothers were among those killed.

The secretary-general of the Fatah movement for southern Lebanon said the dispute between the groups began several weeks ago as a personal disagreement between their members.

He said the clashes had stopped and efforts were under way to restore calm in the camp.

More than 400,000 Palestinians, refugees and their descendants, live in camps throughout Lebanon.

Under a long-standing agreement, Lebanese security forces do not enter the camps, where armed Palestinian groups regularly clash with each other.

(Ma’an and agencies-  www.maannews.net)