LEBANON:Heavy gunfire broke an uneasy truce last night as the Lebanese army tightened its grip on Nahr al-Bared camp, where Sunni Muslim militants are holed up after a five-day siege.
Relief workers say about 15,000 Palestinian refugees have fled the camp following heavy bombardments that have wrecked scores of homes. However, at least as many people remain inside.
Humanitarian organisations said access to the camp has been nearly impossible since clashes broke out on Sunday.
"We're extremely concerned about security, we are constantly insisting that both sides allow safe passage to humanitarian organisations," said International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Virginia De La Guardia at the southern gate to the camp. A UN Relief and Works Agency convoy came under fire on Tuesday.
Some water had been delivered to the camp and food will be taken in as soon as possible to civilians struggling for days to survive without running water, electricity or fresh food, she said. Amnesty International expressed concern about the number of civilian casualties during the clashes and urged both sides to allow access to humanitarian workers.
"Amnesty International is particularly concerned about the army's use of artillery and other heavy weapons, including tank fire, against heavily populated areas," Amnesty said in a statement.
Although the Lebanese army held off from shelling the camp yesterday, apparently allowing talks involving religious sheikhs and Palestinian factions to try and make progress, heavy gunfire broke the calm at nightfall.
Civilian casualties can only be guessed at. Dr Youssef Asaad of the Palestinian Red Crescent in nearby al-Beddawi camp said between 38 and 45 bodies lay in Nahr al-Bared, on the road where they fell or inside their homes.
"We need to get the dead out of there but our priority has been bringing out the injured when we can," he said. "There are places where all homes are bombed, whole streets," he added.
When news of a truce on Wednesday reached the Abu Radi family, they fled with another family on a bus. It kept stalling, 12-year-old Youssef Abu Radi recalled from his bed in Safad hospital. "It was as if God knew something would happen to us and was telling us not to leave."
Just 50 metres from the army checkpoint, the bus came under fire, Youssef whispered, his pelvis, chest and belly encased in bandages and punctured with shrapnel. The driver slumped dead over the wheel, shot in the head and chest.
"The bus flipped over and my mother tried to get out and they shot her in the head." Six months pregnant, Muntaha Abu Radi died instantly.
"My sister was screaming and I tried to shield her. A bullet went in my back and came out of my stomach," he said. The family say the shooting came from the direction of the checkpoint.
Youssef's father and sister were also hurt and were being treated at the same hospital. Two-year-old Janna cries constantly for her dead mother, Radi Abu Radi said.
It remained unclear what action the army would take if the militants ignored a government ultimatum to surrender. A 30-year-old deal forbids the military from entering any of Lebanon's 12 squalid refugee camps and Palestinian anger has mounted with the civilian death-toll, raising fears that other camps will flare up.
"We will not surrender to terrorism," prime minister Fouad al-Seniora said yesterday in a televised address. "We will work on uprooting terrorism and finishing it off." He said there would be no strife between Palestinians and Lebanese.
Two late-night bomb attacks have struck central Beirut shopping districts this week, and a third in an eastern mountain resort on Wednesday added to a sense of insecurity.
The US-backed government blames neighbouring Syria for the bombs and a spate of assassinations and has accused it of backing and arming Fatah al-Islam militants. Damascus denies the charges.
Fighting broke out on Sunday following an internal security forces raid on a flat in Tripoli to arrest militants accused of robbing a bank.
At least 22 militants and 32 soldiers have been killed so far.