A large explosion occurred on Friday at an arms and ammunition depot in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, a Lebanese military source said, reporting an unknown number of injuries.
But a Palestinian official in the Abu Rashid al-Beik camp denied the presence of ammunition and weapons in the depot, which he said contained gas and oxygen cylinders.
Read also France and Saudi Arabia at the bedside of Lebanon
According to the military source, the explosion was caused by a fire in the depot located in the camp of Bourj al-Chemali near the city of Tire (south). She said she did not immediately know the origin of the fire. Firefighters dispatched to the scene were trying at the end of the evening to extinguish the flames in the depot located near a mosque, according to residents. Several ambulances entered the camp and the Lebanese army was deployed all around, according to an AFP photographer on the spot.
"A fire broke out in an ammunition and arms and food depot belonging to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the camp, causing the huge explosion,"
according to the Lebanese military source. There are wounded, she added without giving a precise assessment. Maha, a resident of the camp, told AFP that she heard an initial explosion followed by several successive explosions.
Lebanon hosts more than 175,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly in the country's 12 camps, according to official figures from 2020. A figure below estimates, which go up to 500,000.
Under a long-standing agreement, the Lebanese military does not enter these camps, where security is provided by Palestinian factions.
Small arms are in the hands of Palestinian factions in these camps which have seen attacks, assassinations and clashes between rival armed groups in recent decades.