Palestinian factions in south Lebanon hand weapons to army

Palestinian groups in three refugee camps in south Lebanon handed over heavy weapons to the Lebanese army on Thursday, under a disarmament deal reached earlier this year, Lebanese and Palestinian authorities said.

During a visit to Beirut in May, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun agreed that weapons in Lebanon's Palestinian camps would be handed over to the Lebanese authorities.

The implementation of the deal -- part of Lebanese authorities' decision to disarm all non-state groups -- began last week as Abbas's Fatah movement surrendered its weapons in south Beirut's Burj al-Barajneh camp.

The official Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee said on Thursday that "heavy weapons belonging to the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Rashidieh, Al-Bass and Burj al-Shemali camps were handed over to the Lebanese army".

Abbas's Fatah is the most prominent PLO faction. Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are allied to Lebanon's Hezbollah, are not part of the organisation.

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps -- where Fatah, Hamas and other armed groups are present -- and leaves the factions to handle security.

The statement said six truckloads of weapons were removed from Rashidieh, and one truck each from the other two locations, adding that the process would continue in the rest of Lebanon's Palestinian camps.

In an army barracks in city of Tyre, near the Rashidieh camp, an AFP photographer saw several army trucks arriving after the handover.

In Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina confirmed that "the relevant Palestinian authorities in Lebanon have handed over the second batch of Palestine Liberation Organisation weapons" to the army in the three camps as part of the May agreement.

Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA.

The move to collect the Palestinian factions' weapons comes as the Lebabese government, under heavy U.S. pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli military action, has tasked the army with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year.

During a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that largely ended with a November ceasefire, Palestinian groups including Hamas claimed rocket fire towards Israel.