This is popular front a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare and

underreported conflict with me Jake Hanrahan. This episode we're speaking to journalist

Matt Kiniston. He's going to be talking to us about the recent gun battles in

Iron-Al-Hillway, the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

Recently there's been serious conflict between two different factions,

Fatar and a jihadist faction in the camp. The area is controlled

by various different Palestinian paramilitary groups. The Lebanese military

has nothing to do with the place and in the midst of this recent urban warfare many

civilians have been hurt and killed. Support Popular Front at patreon.com

slash Popular Front. Patreon. Before we get into the recent conflicts in I and Al Hill where maybe let's explain what this place actually is and how it came to be

because it's kind of obscure in a way for people not particularly

plugged into war on conflicts and even maybe for people that are I think it's one of those places that

it's often under the radar but when it off, it causes a lot of trouble.

So yeah, just tell us what is this place?

So I know Hillaway is the largest refugee camp for Palestinians in Lebanon. It was established by the ICRC, the International

Council Red Cross in 1948 after the Napa, which is where the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were

exiled or expelled from Palestine, Palestinian society was essentially

destroyed in Israel and so yeah hundreds of thousand Palestinians fled many

many or 250,000 ended up in in Lebanon and the camp I know Hillway was originally set up and built to house or home 20,000 people.

The population has fluctuated over the years, swelling up to 120,000 at the end, or at the

onset of the Syrian Civil War, because a lot of Syrians came in and moved into I know Hillway in 2011.

And the camp has sprawled so it's it's the borders of the camp very much now within and around the town of Cider, which is a southern city in Lebanon.

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