Activism

Video: Palestinian refugees from Syria speak out

Possibly what we need to do most in the case of the Syrian revolution is listen to people who participated in it and those who are facing the abhorrent violence against it. Listen to these Palestinians, now yet again refugees in another land. First the Zionist armies exiled them from their villages in Palestine in 1948, now the armies of Bashar exiled them from Syria, which had became a temporary home. This video is 8:31 of a deeply troubling, deeply painful take on the everyday reality of Palestinians made refugees yet again.

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-12/17/c_132044629.htm

300 radical fighters infiltrate Palestinian refugee camp, battling local committees
English.news.cn 2012-12-17 01:44:22
300 fighters from al-Nusra infiltrated Palestinian refugee camp and clashed with local committees.
• Tens of civilians and members of popular committees have been killed and wounded during clashes.
• The Lebanese al-Manar TV said the Nusra fighters are bombarding the camp from four axis.

DAMASCUS, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) — More than 300 fighters from the radical al-Nusra Front on Sunday morning infiltrated the Palestinian camp of in the Syrian capital Damascus and clashed with local committees there, causing human losses, great chaos and huge displacement movement, local media said.

Al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, has been beefing up the presence in the surrounding areas of the camp over the past days in a bid to storm it, the local Ajel news network said, adding that intense clashes are going on in the camp.

The local committees in the camp are controlled by the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmad Jibril, who is a staunch supporter of the Syrian administration of President Bashar al- Assad.

Witnesses and sources said that tens of civilians and members of popular committees have been killed and wounded at the Yarmouk camp during the clashes, adding that most of the al-Nusra fighters came from the Damascus’ suburbs of Daraya, Eastern Ghouta, al- Hajar al-Aswad and Yeldah.

Meanwhile, Anwar Rajja, the PFLP-GC spokesman, denied untrue media reports about defections in the PFLP-GC ranks and about the departure of its leaders from Damascus to the Syrian coastal city of Tartous.

The Lebanese al-Manar TV, which is close to the Syrian government, said the Nusra fighters are bombarding the camp from four axis.

Still, no exact number of casualties has emerged.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based activists’ group, said that a Syrian MIG aircraft bombed parts of the camp, adding that eight people were killed in the process. However, Raja denied the airstrike reports.

Thrusting the Palestinians in the deadly Syrian crisis adds another complication to the political landscape in Syria which hosts more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees.

i heard elsewhere large portions of Yarmouk refugee camp have been taken over by al-Nusra. here’s FRANKLIN LAMB april 9th:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/09/when-the-yarmouk-palestinian-camp-fled/

Palestinian refugees are being severely punished in Syria out of revenge by jihadst factions and others, for not becoming involved in the current Syrian civil war ….
..
As of yesterday, the situation in Yarmouk stands approximately as follows. The south-west corner of the camp is increasingly under the control of “rebels.” Their control appears to be spreading as reinforcements sneak in and their ranks swell a bit from defections from camp “popular committees.” Sniping and clashes appear to be spreading also. The Ahmed Jabril-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which was largely expelled two months ago and their weapon stores taken over by Al Nusra fighters, currently has some fighters back in the camp.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/12/us-sheds-crocodile-tears-over-plight-of-palestinian-refugees.html

U.S. Sheds Crocodile Tears Over Plight Of Palestinian Refugees
This is something we never expected to hear from the U.S. State Department. Today it denounced airstrikes against Palestinians.

Why only now? Why didn’t we hear that during the two war on Gaza? Or during the Israeli attacks in Lebanon?

Well, this time there were U.S. supported terrorists who where hit by a Syrian Army airstrike while they overran a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus.

The United States is deeply concerned by reports that dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed or wounded in Yarmouk, an area of Damascus home to 150,000 Palestinian refugees, as a result of aerial bombardment and fighting between Syrian government forces and armed opposition on December 16. These latest attacks mark a significant and alarming escalation of the conflict in Syria.

More like “Insurgent-aligned Palestinian Refugees from Syria speak out.” Even though there were many secular activists involved in the beginning months of nonviolent protests (when the demands were for reform), once militant factions highjacked the movement (demanding nothing short of Assad’s ouster), the opposition has been overwhelmingly Islamist (Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda) and armed.

Speaking of the Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, the Angry Arab notes that “Palestinian leaders and organizations in Syria (who are opposed to the Syrian regime) mildly and politely ask the Free Syrian Army to end its crimes in the camp”

Al Nusra front will kill anyone who gets in the way of a Sharia non democratic state, if they came to power Hezbollah would be next on the list, these people are throat cutting fanatics backed by the Saudis and Gulf states and are eager to forment sectarian civil war in the region, fortunately the more secular Sunni and other minority sects in Syria will defeat them, as the Sunni tribes have done in Iraq. The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said his group had trained and funded fighters from Syria’s al-Nusra Front – which is blacklisted by the United States – since the early days of the two-year-old uprising.
He said in a statement posted on Islamist websites and seen by Reuters on Tuesday that the two groups would operate under the joint title of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“It’s now time to declare in front of the people of the Levant and the world that al-Nusra Front is but an extension of the Islamic State of Iraq and part of it,” Baghdadi said.
“We thus declare … the cancellation of the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the name of al-Nusra Front and grouping them together under one name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,”.

Recently, one of the anti-Syrian fundamentalist groups kidnapped Christian religious leaders in Syria. There is a petition for our government to seek their release.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/appeal-president-obama-and-his-government-release-two-abducted-orthodox-christian-archbishops-syria/xNskxL1q