ISIS ATTACKS YARMOUK CAMP, KILLS PALESTINIAN REFUGEES

“Fighters from ISIS launched an assault this morning on Yarmouk and took over the majority of the camp,” Anwar Abdul-Hadi, director of political affairs for the PLO in Damascus told AFP news agency, adding that fighting was ongoing inside the camp.

During the four-year-long civil war, the refugee camp’s population has shrunk from approximately 150,000 to only 18,000 as thousands fled the civil war to neighbouring countries or other areas of Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that ISIS had taken a “large part” of the encampment and had previously confirmed that the group were in control of a number of roads in the camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital.

Last year, ISIS supporters claimed that the group had taken areas of the camp with photos circulating of a parade through the streets of Yarmouk.

Sources inside the refugee camp told Days of Palestine the two Palestinian refugees were killed in a mortar attack launched by ISIS.

According to the sources, journalist Jamal Khalifa was killed in Al-Madares Street, while Abdul-Latif al-Rimawi succumbed to his wounds caused by shrapnel of another mortar shell in the camp.

Other sources said that ISIS kidnapped five Palestinian refugees near The Fifteen Street in the camp.

The refugees were moved to an unknown place, the sources said.

However, Palestinian groups including Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis (Hamas) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine launched a counter-offensive against ISIS to push them out of the areas they controlled, clashing in the early hours of this morning with the group’s militants.

Conditions in the camp have deteriorated since 2012 as terrorists fighting the Syrian Arab Army have used the camp as a base to attack the the capital, Damascus, leaving the Syrian government to impose a siege on the camp.

The camp was constructed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war for Palestinian refugees fleeing the violence. In June last year, terrorists battling president Bashar al-Assad agreed a ceasefire deal which allowed the siege on the camp to be lifted and basic goods to be delivered.http://falastinews.com/2015/04/03/isis-attacks-yarmouk-camp-kills-palestinian-refugees/