More than 400 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the fighting
between the Syrian army and anti-government forces, Zakariya al-Agha, a senior
PLO official, announced Thursday.
The announcement came as Palestinian
refugees who fled from Syria to Jordan complained that the Palestinian Authority
was doing nothing to assist them.
Nearly 500,000 Palestinians live in a
number of refugee camps in Syria.
Agha, who heads the PLO’s refugee
department, said that since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, the
Palestinian leadership’s policy has been not to support any of the rival
parties.
“The refugees in Syria are there as guests until they return to
the homeland from which they were forced out,” Agha told the PA’s Voice of
Palestine radio station. He said that because the Palestinian refugees camps in
Syria have not been involved in the conflict, many Syrian civilians found
shelter with Palestinian families.
Agha accused radical Palestinian
groups that are affiliated with the Syrian regime of seeking to involve the
Palestinian camps in the conflict.
Although he did not name the
Palestinian groups, PA leaders have accused Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command of dragging the Palestinians into the
fighting in Syria. Jibril’s group has long been supportive of the Syrian regime
and its members are said to be fighting alongside the Syrian army.
Agha
said that all 400 Palestinian victims were killed in the Yarmouk refugee camp
near Damascus.
Human rights activists in Syria said that that 18
Palestinians were killed on Wednesday when the Syrian army used artillery to
attack Yarmouk. The activists said that four women and three children were among
the victims.
Meanwhile, representatives of Palestinian refugees who fled
from Syria to Jordan complained that the PA was not doing anything to ease their
suffering. In a letter to the PA leadership, the refugees said that the PA
Embassy in Amman was refusing to extend any type of assistance to them. They
also said they have been forced to seek help from international aid
organizations and the Jordanian authorities in light of the PA’s failure to help
them.