Residents fear Assad loyalists will enter in search of rebel groups after refugees become drawn into conflict in Syria
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Martin Chulov in Beirut and Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2012 18.27 GMT
Children enter Lebanon with their families at the Masnaa border crossing. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP
yrian tanks have closed in on the entrances to the largest Palestinian camp in Damascus after battles between pro- and anti-Assad groups for the first time directly drew the country's refugees into the 21-month-old crisis.
Skirmishes between Palestinian groups allied with the rebel Free Syria Army and other factions loyal to the Assad regime continued on Monday, a day after an air strike on a mosque in Yarmouk camp was thought to have killed around 20 people.
Large numbers of residents of the camp, where most of Syria's 500,000 Palestinian population live, were making plans to leave, fearing the Syrian army, now on the camp's outskirts, would soon enter in pursuit of rebel groups, which include Palestinian militants who have turned on the regime long considered to be their protector.
Lebanese officials at the Masnaa border crossing reported that several hundred Syrian Palestinians had arrived seeking refuge.
The Free Syria Army said on Sunday it had launched an operation inside Yarmouk against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, a pro-regime group led by the veteran militant Ahmed Jibril, who is believed to have since fled with his supporters. Jibril's headquarters were later bombed. Rebel groups claimed to be in control of the camp, and by nightfall Syrian soldiers were reported to be in pursuit of them.
Yarmouk, a large sprawling section from the south-west to the east of the capital, is in an area rebel groups have been trying to use as a stronghold from which to penetrate nearby parts of Damascus that are home to government institutions.
Palestinians have enjoyed protection in Syria for the past 40 years by a regime that has often used them to showcase its resistance credentials. Until recently, the Palestinian community has largely stayed out of the political fray and the fight for Syria's destiny.
However, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has abandoned its headquarters in Damascus and turned on Assad, has lately been increasingly vocal in its criticism of the regime.
Quoting the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Taher al-Nunu, the Palestinian news organisation, Ma'an, condemned the regime air strike on Yarmouk. Hamas's deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, now based in Egypt, demanded that all Palestinians and Syrian civilians be kept out of the fighting.
Meanwhile, a PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, condemned the Syrian regime's "criminal murder and destruction", and called on the international community to intervene.
The battle for the Syrian capital has entered its second month, with neither side seemingly able to make advances. Regime forces still maintain a firm grip over their power base at the centre of the city, which include the security establishment and the presidential palace, while rebels remain undefeated on the outskirts of the city.
Syria's vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, said neither the regime nor the opposition could win the civil war outright, and called for a negotiated solution to prevent widepsread destruction in the country.
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