Two days of fighting in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon have left more than 50 soldiers and fighters dead and an unknown number of hapless civilians killed and wounded.
On Monday the Lebanese army tightened its grip on the Nahr al-Bared camp, home to 30,000 Palestinian refugees, cut off water and electricity and shelled areas where gunmen of Fatah al-Islam, a radical fundamentalist group were believed to be holed up.
A Red Cross mission was able to evacuate half a dozen of wounded civilians but fierce fighting prevented ambulances from reentering the camp.
The government has held back from giving the order to invade and smoke out the militants because of a 38-year old agreement barring the entry of Lebanese forces into the camps and concern over casualties among civilians. 
The authorities also fear that the 3,00,000 Palestinians in Lebanon’s other 11 refugee camps could stage violent protests or retaliate.
Violence erupted in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, on Sunday after security services attempted to raid flats of Fatah al-Islam members accused of involvement in a bank robbery.
The group retaliated by seizing a Lebanese army post at the entrance of the camp, killing four soldiers.
Intense street battles ensued and the Lebanese army began shelling the camp.
Little known Fatah al-Islam, with 150-200 fighters, broke away last November from  from Fatah Uprising, a 1982 offshoot of Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement.
Fatah al-Islam, headed by Shaker Abbsi, a Palestinian born in Jericho, claims that its mission is to bring religious reform to Palestinians so they can confront Israel. But the Lebanese authorities say Fatah al-Islam is an arm of Syrian intelligence and blame the group for a bus bombing in February which killed three in a Christian village.

Ties
The group has ties to Sunni fundamentalists in northern Lebanon and is alleged to have al Qaeda connections since Fatah al-Islam’s communiques have appeared on websites carrying al Qaeda statements.
Fatah and other well known Palestinian parties have denounced Fatah al-Islam and say that most of its members are not Palestinians but Arab and other fundamentalists who fought in Iraq and found a safe haven in the refugee camp.
A Lebanese spokesman said that among the bodies of slain fighters were Pakistanis and other non-Arabs.
The Tripoli fighting is the country’s worst bout of violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war and has exacerbated tensions at a time Lebanon is already suffering from a protracted political crisis between the Western backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the Shia Hizbollah movement which demands political reform and democratisation.