Lebanon/Palestine/Israel

Top Palestinian official killed in bomb attack in Lebanon

Article published on the 2009-03-23 Latest update 2009-03-23 16:52 TU

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(Photo: Reuters)

A Palestinian official and three other people were killed Monday in a roadside bombing outside a refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Senior Palestine Liberation Organisation Kamal Medhat, 51 years-old, two of his bodyguards, and another official died in the blast as their envoy was set to enter the Mieh Mieh camp near the town fo Sidon.

"The bomb was apparently hidden in a little shed on the side of the road and was detonated as Medhat's convoy drove by," an army spokesperson told the AFP.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, condmended the act as a "terrorist crime".

Medhat was the PLO's deputy representative in Lebanon. He is the highest ranking Palestinian official killed in Lebanon since the PLO pulled out of the country in 1982 after the Israeli invasion.

Abbas Zaki, the Palestinian Authority's representative in Lebanon, blamed Israel for the killing.

"Those behind the killing are working in one way or another for Israel," said Zaki, who had left the camp in another vehicle just minutes before the attack. "We are trying to calm the situation inside the camps."

Zaki warned that their would be repercussions for the attack in Lebanon and Palestinian camps.

Medhat was also a close aide to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.