BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 21 (UPI) -- The Lebanese and Palestinian presidents agreed Wednesday to support Beirut's efforts to enforce the state's monopoly on weapons by disarming Palestinian factions, preventing the use of Lebanese territory for attacks on Israel and enhancing cooperation to combat terrorism and extremism in refugee camps.
A joint communique issued after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with his Lebanese counterpart, Joseph Aoun, shortly after arriving in Beirut for a three-day visit stated that both leaders affirmed the principle that weapons should be exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state and emphasized the importance of respecting Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
"The era of weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state has come to an end, especially since the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples have, for decades, borne heavy costs, enormous losses and great sacrifices," the communique stated, as read by the spokeswoman for the Lebanese presidency, Najat Sharafeddine.
It added that the Palestinian side affirmed "its commitment not to use Lebanese territory as a launching pad for any military operations and to respect Lebanon's declared policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries and staying away from regional conflicts."
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Aoun has remained firm since he was elected to the country's top post in January on his pledge to disarm all militias and impose the state monopoly on weapons.
Hezbollah, which was greatly weakened during Israel's recent destructive war, and the Lebanon-based Palestinian armed factions, are thus to relinquish their weapons due to the dramatic regional shifts and mounting international pressure.
The Lebanese Army has begun gradually taking control of positions held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command outside the 12 overcrowded and impoverished refugee camps across various regions of Lebanon. These camps are controlled by Abbas's mainstream Fatah movement, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and other smaller armed factions.
Aoun and Abbas also agreed to strengthen cooperation to combat terrorism and ensure that Palestinian camps "do not become safe havens for extremist groups," according to the statement.
Sharafeddine said the two sides agreed on "a unified vision" concerning the disarming of the Palestinian groups and are to form a political-security committee that will also address the issue of the Palestinian refugees and their social and humanitarian conditions.
During the meeting with Aoun, Abbas reiterated that the Palestinians "are temporary guests" in Lebanon and that the Palestinian Authority does not want to keep "weapons neither inside nor outside the camps" or engage in any illegal activity.
But the Palestinian president does not control all the factions and cannot speak on their behalf. For this, he called for engaging groups outside the Palestinian Authority framework in a dialogue "based on the principle that there should be one state, one law, one army and one legitimate weapon."
He was mainly referring to Hamas, whose fighters in Lebanon have joined Hezbollah in the war it launched in support of Gaza in October 2023.
A Hamas source said his group and other Palestinian factions "are open to any dialogue" that would achieve "common grounds" to consolidate security and stability in the country.
The focus would be "on the weapons inside the refugee camps," the source told UPI, emphasizing that "these are light personal weapons."
"No one is against the Lebanese state's monopoly over arms," he said. "The only time Hamas used its weapons [in Lebanon] was during the Gaza support war under the supervision of Hezbollah."
Early this month, the Lebanese Army arrested several Lebanese and Palestinians suspected of firing rockets into northern Israel on March 22 and March 28 in violation of the cease-fire accord that went into effect a month earlier. The rocket attacks provoked additional Israeli retaliatory strikes.
After Lebanon's Higher Defense threatened Hamas with strict measures, the group handed over the rocket fire suspects to the Lebanese Army.
"Firing rockets was a mistake. ... It was an individual act because of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and not a decision by Hamas," the source said.
While he acknowledged that there are "some wanted individuals" by the Lebanese authorities inside certain camps -- primarily in the largest shantytown, Ein el-Helweh, on the outskirts of the port city of Sidon in southern Lebanon -- he dismissed any connection to terrorism that could threaten Lebanon's security."
The mechanism to remove the weapons of the Palestinian groups is still not in place.
"How would this happen? Who would take control of security inside the camps? It is still unclear," the source asked rhetorically.
According to a census conducted by Lebanon several years ago, some 170,000 Palestinian refugees are living in the country.
However, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, estimates that no more than 250,000 Palestine refugees currently reside in the country, out of nearly 500,000 registered with the agency as of February.
In a report released last March, UNRWA highlighted a very high poverty rate among Palestinians in Lebanon, recorded at the beginning of 2023. The report noted that the refugees are barred from working in several key professions, prohibited from owning property or businesses, and excluded from employment in the public sector.
