A few days ago I wrote a brief article on the internal conflict going on within Gaza and commented on how quickly such things can explode here in the Middle East. Well it looks like Hamas and Fatah have a ceasefire in place, which has stopped most of the street fighting, but now Israel is stepping up its attacks as well in response to a barrage of rockets fired into southern Israel. As of this morning it now appears that an Israeli woman has been killed by a missile, an unfortunate development that will surely raise the stakes on all sides. In addition to this latest casualty, according to BBC there have already been 30 Palestinians killed by Israeli air strikes in the latest violence.

In addition to the ongoing crisis in Gaza, now fighting has erupted in Lebanon as the Lebanese Army has attacked a group called Fatah Al Islam, which is hiding out inside the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon's second largest city of Tripoli. Before hearing about the Lebanese action yesterday I had never heard of Fatah Al Islam so I am not yet sure exactly what they stand for. However, based on what I have seen on the news it appears that they are not supported by the Palestinians and seem to be a hodge podge of Syrians, Iraqis and Lebanese. If this is true, it means that the refugees in the camp have been put in harms way as yet another militant group tries to use regional sympathy for the Palestinians to promote their own agenda while also taking advantage of the refugee camp, which by agreement the Lebanese are not supposed to interfere with.

Over the next few days I will surely be keeping my eye on this and trying to determine what is really going on in Tripoli, right now it is difficult to separate the facts from the propaganda.