Once again, the Yarmouk refugee camp is facing destruction, murder and slaughter at the hands of criminal gangs, following a remarkable development as they have seized the camp and seek to displace our people outside Syria, in order to undermine and attack the right of return. The invasion of the so-called ISIS in complicity with Jabhat al-Nusra to seize the camp and commit more killings and displacement is a new stage in this crisis, before which all attempts at reconciliation failed. It is critical to take a clear response to this new development in order to stop the suffering of the Palestinian people in the camps.
In light of this emerging crisis inside the camp and the failure of all attempts to remove the gunmen inside and the persistence of ISIS and Nusra in the camp, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine calls upon all Palestinian factions to take a serious and responsible stand to confront this emergency and the suffering of our people. There is a clear goal of the liberation of the camp from these criminal gangs and the lifting of the siege, and cutting the road on the project to destroy the camp, the return of displaced persons to their homes inside the camp, and neutralizing it entirely from the Syrian crisis, to preserve the compass of our struggle, towards Palestine.
In this context, the PFLP calls for the formation of a joint force of Palestinian factions and the Palestinian Liberation Army to meet this challenge. The Popular Front also emphasizes the need to make this a clear unified Palestinian position, politically and in the battlefield, in order to liberate the camp, expel the criminal gangs, and return our people to their camp.
This statement in English was first published on the Web site of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 11 April 2015; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. Click here for the PFLP statement in Arabic published on 9 April 2015. See, also, “The Crisis in Yarmouk Camp After the Invasion of ISIS: Report by Amal Asfour, Member of the Palestinian National Assembly for Relief, Yarmouk Camp” (PFLP Web site, 11 April 2015); and “Palestinians in Gaza Rally and March in Support of Yarmouk Under Attack” (PFLP Web site, 11 April 2015).