Pro-Iran Palestinian faction chiefs quit Damascus amid pressure

DAMASCUS: The leaders of pro-Iran Palestinian factions close to former ruler Bashar al-Assad have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities, Palestinian sources said Friday, a key US demand for lifting sanctions.

A pro-Iran Palestinian faction leader who left Syria after Assad’s December overthrow said on condition of anonymity that “most of the Palestinian factional leadership that received support from Tehran has left Damascus” to countries including Lebanon, while another still based there confirmed the development.

“The factions have fully handed over weapons in their headquarters or with their cadres” to the authorities, who also received “lists of names of faction members possessing individual weapons” and demanded that those arms be handed over, the first added.

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A third Palestinian faction source in Damascus said that after Assad’s overthrow, “we gathered our members’ weapons ourselves and handed them over, but we have kept individual light weapons for protection… with the (authorities’) authorisation”.

In the Yarmuk Palestinian camp in the Damascus suburbs, which was devastated during the war, factional banners usually at the entrance were gone and party buildings were closed and unguarded, AFP photographers said. Factional premises elsewhere in Damascus also appeared closed.

‘NO COOPERATION’

Many Palestinians fled to Syria in 1948 following the creation of Israel, and from the mid-1960s Syria began hosting the leadership of Palestinian factions.

Pro-Iran Palestinian factions had enjoyed considerable freedom of movement under Assad.

Washington, which considers several Palestinian factions to be “terrorist” organisations, last week announced it was lifting sanctions on Syria after earlier saying Damascus needed to respond to demands including suppressing “terrorism” and preventing “Iran and its proxies from exploiting Syrian territory”.

According to the White House, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, US President Donald Trump gave new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa a list of demands that included deporting “Palestinian terrorists”.

The factions along with groups from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen are part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” against Israel, some of which fought alongside Assad’s forces after civil war erupted in 2011.

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In neighbouring Lebanon, a government official told AFP that the disarmament of Palestinian camps, where factions usually handle security, would begin next month based on an accord with visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Sharaa’s Islamist group led the offensive that ousted Assad, a close ally of Iran.

Last month, Sharaa met Abbas on a visit to Damascus.

The factions “did not receive any official request from the authorities to leave Syrian territory” but instead faced restrictions, the first Palestinian factional leader said, noting that some factions “were de facto prohibited from operating” or their members were arrested.

‘UNWELCOME’

The new authorities have seized property from “private homes, offices, vehicles and military training camps in the Damascus countryside and other provinces”, he said.

The Syrian authorities did not immediately provide comment to AFP when asked about the matter.

Earlier this month, officials from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) said Syrian authorities briefly detained factional chief Talal Naji.

In April, the Al-Quds Brigades said Islamic Jihad’s Syria official Khaled Khaled and organising committee member Yasser al-Zafri had been detained “without explanation”.

A source from the movement told AFP on Friday that they were still detained.

The second Palestinian official, from a group that has remained in Damascus with limited representation, said there was “no cooperation between most of the Palestinian factions and the new Syrian administration”.

“The response to our contact is mostly cold or delayed. We feel like unwelcome guests, though they don’t say that clearly,” he added, also requesting anonymity.

The Fatah movement and militant group Hamas appear to be unaffected.

A Hamas official in Gaza told AFP that it had “channels of communication with our brothers in Syria”.

Hamas left after the civil war began as ties with the government deteriorated amid the Palestinian group’s support for opposition demands, and has minimal representation there.

Yarmuk camp resident Marwan Mnawar, a retiree, said that “nobody knows what happened to the factional leadership”, adding that “people just want to live, they are exhausted” by the conflict and factional infighting.