PA president to call for disarmament of Palestine resistance groups in Lebanon during upcoming visit, sources say

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Lebanon’s government are reportedly set to announce the demilitarisation and disarmament of Palestinian factions throughout Lebanon, amid a revived effort by Beirut to halt attacks into northern Israel.

According to the London-based news outlet Middle East Eye, which cited unnamed Palestinian and Lebanese sources, the PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit Lebanon on 19 May for an official trip, in which he will meet Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and other senior officials.

As part of the meetings, Abbas and the Lebanese government will reportedly call for the disarming of all armed Palestinian factions within Lebanon, including the Lebanese branch of his own Fatah party, along with factions based in refugee camps across the country.

READ: The uneasy ties between Palestinians and Arab states

The presence of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon stretches back decades to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces during the 1948 Nakba. Successive Lebanese governments and generations have continued to marginalise the Palestinians in Lebanon, prompting many to join armed Palestinian resistance groups over the decades.

In order to implement the reported move, according to one Palestinian source, Abbas aims to form a security committee to oversee and set a timetable for the disarmament process, in which he notably agreed to a plan to remove Fatah’s weapons from the refugee camps while offering political and diplomatic cover during that process.

If the various Palestinian groups and factions refuse to hand over their arms, however, they will reportedly be subject to a Lebanese military operation which will forcefully disarm them.

The reported plans would come weeks after Lebanon’s Higher Defence Council warned Gaza-based Palestinian resistance group Hamas against launching attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory, threatening it with “the harshest measures” if it does so.

According to a statement by the council on Friday, “Hamas and other factions will not be allowed to endanger national stability” by striking Israel from its northern front. “The safety of Lebanon’s territories is above all”, he stressed.