By Nazih Siddiq
BEDDAWI, Lebanon, June 29 (Reuters) - Lebanese troops fired at Palestinian civilians demanding to return to their homes at a besieged refugee camp on Friday, killing three protesters and wounding 50, witnesses and hospital sources said.
The witnesses said the soldiers opened fire first into the air as hundreds of refugees, including women and children, tried to storm through an army checkpoint and head to Nahr al-Bared camp, scene of nearly six weeks of intense fighting between the army and the al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants.
When the crowd did not disperse and attacked soldiers with stones and sticks, the troops fired automatic rifles at the protest inflicting the casualties, who were rushed to a hospital in Beddawi and another in the northern port city of Tripoli.
The incident will likely increase tensions at Lebanon's 11 other Palestinian refugee camps -- already close to boiling point over fighting in north Lebanon that has killed 204 people.
The witnesses said the refugees from Nahr al-Bared had started to march from the nearby Beddawi camp, where they had sought refuge after the battles began on May 20. "We sacrifice our blood and soul for you, Bared," they chanted.
They were frustrated at the time they had had to spend at the overcrowded Beddawi in difficult circumstances, and said they were determined to return home despite ongoing fighting.
MILITARY ZONE
Lebanon's Defence Minister Elias al-Murr has claimed victory and an end to major combat against Fatah al-Islam. But the army says Nahr al-Bared remains a closed military zone as it tries to force the militants holed up inside to surrender.
Security forces are barred from entering Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps by a 1969 Arab agreement.
Much of the camp, originally home to 40,000 refugees, has been destroyed and mines and booby traps litter its buildings and alleys.
A military source said Fatah al-Islam snipers killed two soldiers in sporadic fighting on Friday, raising the death toll to 204 since the start of the battles, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
At least 86 soldiers, 75 militants and 43 civilians have now been killed in the fighting in north Lebanon -- mainly at the camp but also in nearby areas.
Murr has said 300 Fatah al-Islam fighters have been killed or wounded and 40 arrested. Among those held are four Australians, two Danes and one Belgian.
A group gathering Muslim Palestinian clerics said it was suspending its weeks-old mediation effort to broker a peaceful end to the standoff, warning that the situation in the camp and for the displaced refugees was deteriorating.
Fatah al-Islam split from a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction last year with some 200 fighters. Since then it has drawn scores of Arab jihadis, including Iraq war veterans, to its Nahr al-Bared base.
The group's leaders deny any direct links to al Qaeda, but say they sympathise with Osama bin Laden's network.