Beirut/Tripoli, Lebanon — The entrance to the Burj Barajneh refugee camp is covered with small yellow flags of the Palestinian group Fatah displaying the faces of the late Yasser Arafat and his successor, current Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
But these are not the men of the moment. This honor is reserved for a man whose face is unknown because he covers it with a red keffiyeh: Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades.
Fatah and Hamas are opponents present in Lebanon, although they often have competing political or even military agendas, but this does not reflect on the Palestinians there.
“I am not a member of any party, neither Fatah nor Hamas,” Hassan, a Palestinian refugee in his 20s, told Tel Aviv Tribune under the Yellow Sea.
But, Hassan adds, he loves Abu Obaida because: “We are with everyone who helps the Palestinian cause. »
On October 7, the Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian armed factions launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, an attack on Israel in which 1,139 Israeli civilians and security personnel were killed and approximately 240 others were were taken to Gaza.
Israel responded with a vicious campaign of retaliation that has now killed more than 28,000 people and displaced more than two million people, or 90 percent of Gaza’s population, to the dismay of Palestinians and their supporters around the world.
Israel has also intensified its attacks on southern Lebanon in recent days, amid heightened tensions with the armed group Hezbollah which dominates the region. Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed 10 civilians on Wednesday.
Amid the destruction and death, Lebanon’s Palestinians and many Lebanese have formed affinities with movements they believe are effectively resisting Israel.
A Palestinian presence in Lebanon for 75 years
After the 1948 Nakba, numerous Palestinian refugee camps were established in Lebanon and today there remain 12 across the country, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including a handful in the capital, Beirut. Each camp has its political dynamics but, historically, Fatah has been the most powerful political and social force.
The group gained a firm foothold in the camps in the 1960s and 1970s, in part thanks to the Cairo Agreement, which transferred control of the camps from the Lebanese army to the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command.
When the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975, Fatah had established what many considered a state within a state, with checkpoints and roadblocks that earned parts of southern Lebanon the nickname “Fatahland.” “.
But this ability to mobilize has faded somewhat over time, with many Palestinians in Lebanon now disillusioned with the status quo and seeking to emigrate rather than remain in camps with few rights or political or economic opportunities.
“Many are with neither (Fatah nor Hamas),” said Marie Kortam, an associate researcher at the French Middle East Institute who specializes in Palestinian groups.
Is Hamas making progress?
Analysts say Hamas is trying to take advantage of its position in the spotlight and unfortunate conditions in refugee camps to recruit and increase its influence in Lebanon. At the beginning of December, Hamas announced the creation of the “Al-Aqsa Flood Vanguards”, a recruitment campaign aimed, according to it, at finding new political and social cadres.
“(They) are trying to form a cadre of politicians and supporters to instill morals, values and political training,” Kortam said.
Although the Palestinian camps support Abu Obaida, Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Qassam Brigades leader Mohammed Deif, they represent the resistance, not their party, Kortam says. “Hamas is not rooted in the camps like Fatah,” Kortam said.
While perhaps not as historically strong as Fatah, Hamas “has gained popularity specifically among Sunnis in Lebanon” since Oct. 7, said Mohanad Hage Ali, an expert on Islamist groups at Carnegie Middle East Center.
At the end of October, Hamas organized a large demonstration in downtown Beirut. Thousands of people were bused in from across the country to attend the demonstration as green Hamas flags filled Martyrs’ Square. Although much of the crowd was Palestinian, many Lebanese were also present and some had traveled for hours to get there.
On a cold February evening, Abu Iyad, a 38-year-old Lebanese man, sat at a table in the corner of a cafe on Azmi Street in Tripoli.
“We are with the people of Gaza and if the border was open, maybe people would leave,” Abu Iyad, who works as a sports teacher, told Tel Aviv Tribune. “Look at Syria and Iraq. »
During the Syrian civil war, many young men from northern Lebanon, particularly from Tripoli, joined groups fighting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Yet even though many people in northern Lebanon are moved or outraged by the violence in Gaza and support the Palestinian cause, they have not mobilized politically or militarily.
Although there have been rumors that at least one Lebanese father named his newborn son Obaida, so that he could be called Abu Obaida, support for Hamas or the Palestinian resistance here is less steadfast than in the Palestinian camps.
Smoking a cigarette outside his cafe near the Tripoli exhibition center, Hajj Kamal said Tripoli’s youth could offer little to the people of Gaza other than solidarity. “What are we supposed to do, send them an OMT? » he asked mockingly, referring to a Lebanese money transfer service.
In November, two men from Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, were killed when the car they were in was hit by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. Also in the car were a Hamas member and two Turkish citizens who had recently arrived in the country.
Tripoli is a Sunni stronghold in northern Lebanon, not far from the border with Syria. The fact that two men from there were killed along with a Hamas member in the south, an area where Hezbollah has military dominance, raised questions about whether Hamas was recruiting outside its traditional base.
But Tripoli residents say there was no mass mobilization in their city.
Hezbollah controls military activity
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades are militarily active in Lebanon, a presence facilitated by their close relationship with Hezbollah.
Things weren’t always this close, as relations had broken down during the Syrian civil war when Hamas sided with forces opposed to Bashar al-Assad, one of the Syrian regime’s staunchest allies. Hezbollah.
When Sinwar took over as leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, a rapprochement with Iran and Hezbollah ensued and some Hamas leaders, including the recently assassinated Saleh al-Arouri, the leader of the West Bank Qassam Brigades, moved to Lebanon.
Since October 7, Hamas has launched military operations from Lebanon – such as the 16 rockets launched into Israel claimed by the Qassam Brigades – but they remain under the aegis of Hezbollah.
“It’s part of a program,” said Manal Kortam, a Palestinian activist in Lebanon (and Marie’s sister). “Hezbollah is hosting them. There will be no rocket if Hezbollah does not give it the green light.”