Training Day in Ain al Hilwe

Photos by ALB

Just got back from a long day in Ain al Hilwe, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where among other things, I visited a training center for young fighters run by Fatah.

The camp trains some 200 children (boys and a few girls ages 6 to 18) about a dozen of whom live in the barracks full time, several having dropped out of school. Here they learn to use firearms, practice hand-to-hand combat, and are taught Palestinian nationalist ideology. In these photos, blindfolded young fighters disassemble and re-assmble assault rifles (above), and make presentations about the specifications and capabilities of various common weapons, including rocket propelled grenades (below).

The mainstream Palestinian political parties in in Lebanese camps are more militant than their counterparts in Israel and the occupied territories, in part because they represent refugees. Since most Palestinians in Lebanon are descendants of those who fled during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel, they are particularly concerned that their right to return to their lands and homes will be negotiated away or watered down in a peace settlement.

Others just want to live anywhere but in a Lebanese refugee camp.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Ain al Hilwe