A large explosion rocked a Palestinian camp in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre on Friday night, injuring about a dozen people, according to rescue workers on the scene and a Palestinian source inside the camp.
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The explosion in the Burj al-Shemali camp took out a warehouse belonging to Hamas, the terrorist group controlling the Gaza Strip, which is believed to have been holding weapons.
Reports on casualties were conflicting, with state-run National News Agency saying that at least 12 people had been injured and several others killed in the incident, but local media and civil defense workers on the scene said there had been no fatalities. A security source also said fatalities had not been recorded.
The NNA further also cited a security source as confirming the blast took had emanated from a weapons depot belonging to Hamas. It said a judge had ordered security forces to launch an investigation.
Lebanese daily An-Nahar said that the fire began with a fuel tank and spread to a nearby mosque. It then spread to a nearby warehouse known as a Hamas weapons cache, triggering a large explosion, which caused casualties and massive damage to the mosque as well as several nearby homes and shops.
The Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency carried a statement from the terrorist group that denied the warehouse held weapons, saying that the blast was caused by an electrical malfunction in a warehouse containing oxygen tanks and gas cylinders for coronavirus patients, as well as detergents and disinfectants.
The fire damaged some property but losses were limited, the statement said.
A number of armed Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Fatah Movement, hold effective control over roughly a dozen Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which authorities by custom do not enter.
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