Hamas accuses PA of deadly shootout after refugee camp explosion in Lebanon

Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Sunday of being behind a deadly shooting attack that targeted the funeral of a Hamas member inside a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon on the same day. 

The National Security Forces (NSF) of the Fatah "opened fire with automatic weapons directly and deliberately and with the intent to kill towards the participants in the funeral procession", Hamas wrote in a statement. 

"We hold the [Fatah] forces in Lebanon fully responsible for this awful crime and the deliberate assassination of Palestinians participating in the funeral."

In a statement on Monday, the secretary-general of Fatah in Tyre condemned the shooting and said the movement was not responsible for the incident.  

The shootout left four people dead, including three Hamas members. It comes in a context of increasing tensions between Hamas and its political rival, Fatah.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and some Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. 

The funeral was organised for Hamza Shaheen, who was killed on Friday night in an explosion in the Burj al-Shemali Palestinian camp near the city of Tyre, in the south of Lebanon. 

Hamas attributed the source of the blast to an electrical short circuit, which set fire to a warehouse allegedly containing oxygen supplies for Covid-19 patients.

Other media sources claimed that the warehouse was a weapons depot. Journalists were denied access to the site by Hamas, which controls most Palestinian camps in southern Lebanon.