Ma'an – A standoff between Palestinian Authority forces and fighters affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has stretched into a second day in a West Bank refugee camp near Nablus, a PFLP official said. PFLP leader Jamil Mizhir said some of the group's leaders are among the fighters still holed up in Ein Beit El-Ma refugee camp, besieged by Palestinian security services since Sunday. Mizhir accused the security forces of "trying to achieve what the Israeli forces failed to achieve when they besieged the refugee camp and attempted to arrest those leaders."Israeli forces invaded the camp in mid-September, fighting pitched battles with armed Palestinian groups, including PFLP fighters.
300 Palestinian security officers were deployed in Nablus earlier this month, part of a US and Israeli-backed multimillion dollar plan to establish order and dismantle armed groups in and around the city. Mizhir said the siege by what he called "[Palestinian Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad's services" came to fulfill Interior Minister Abdur Razzaq Al-Yahya's pledge to dismantle the military wings of Palestinian factions. Mizhir said Yahya was "obeying orders" he received from the American Security Coordinator Keith Dayton to implement the first stage of the Road Map peace plan. That plan, said Mizhir, aims to "end Palestinian resistance."