LEBANON:A tense calm hung over the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon yesterday, with residents struggling through their fourth day without either electricity or water as the army prepared to breach the camp, ordering everyone to leave or risk harm in the impending showdown.
Rescue workers estimated that dozens of Palestinian refugees had been killed and wounded in the camp since fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants broke out on Sunday.
The army released a statement saying that it would not negotiate with the militants and that the ceasefire did not imply negotiations. "The army will not negotiate with a group of terrorists and criminals. Their fate is arrest and, if they resist the army, death," Elias Murr, the Lebanese defence minister, said.
An exodus of the refugees, which began on Tuesday night, slowed yesterday, with some residents returning to the camp to stay with family members who were too ill to move or did not want to leave. The Red Cross estimated that a third of the camp's 40,000 residents had fled.
At the nearby hospital in Badawi camp, patients were recovering from injuries sustained in four days of constant shelling and gunfire.
Twelve-year-old Yusuf Abu Radi, covering his head with his hand, had gunshot wounds to his legs and chest. His youngest sister was critically injured after being shot in the head. Their mother had died from her wounds earlier in the day and their father had been shot and was being treated at another facility. The family had been running for cover when all four were hit by riflemen.