Hamas appeals for safety of Palestinians in Syria

By Mohamed Majid

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Wednesday appealed to warring parties in Syria not to involve Palestinian refugee camps in incidents in the war-torn country.

"The movement appeals to all parties…not to involve [the Palestinian people] in any of the events taking place there," Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif Al-Kanou said in a statement.

"The suffering of the Palestinians must be brought to an end, as they are refugees. All they are looking forward to and hope for is returning to their homes, cities and villages from which they have been abandoned by the Israeli occupation.”

Around 20 civilians have been killed in week-long airstrikes by forces of the Bashar al-Assad regime on the Yarmouk Camp District of the capital Damascus, according to local sources.

The attacks came after the regime and Daesh failed to reach a deal on evacuating the terrorist group’s militants from Yarmouk Camp and its vicinity.

The Daesh terrorist group controls most of the camp, which is predominantly inhabited by Palestinian refugees.

According to estimates from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), around 12,000 Palestinian refugees are living in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp and its surrounding areas, while the rest are living in areas classified by the UN as hard to reach.

The camp is suffering from fighting between various Syrian factions and a fierce war between Daesh and other organizations as well as raids by the Syrian regime and its allies.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to the UN.