Palestinians urge protection of refugees in Syria

Dozens of Palestinians held a rally in Gaza on Thursday demanding protection of Palestinian refugees at the Yarmouk camp south of Syrian capital Damascus, which has been under grave threat from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

IS militants had stormed the refugee camp, taking the refugees hostage, and forcing tens of thousands to flee the camp, Xinhua reported.

Walid al-Awad, a senior leader of the left-wing Palestinian People's Party urged that "all those taken hostage must be released and those who stormed the camp should leave".

The protesters called on the international community and the Arab states to immediately intervene to save the lives of the Palestinian refugees at the camp.

On Thursday, Ahmad Majdalani, the envoy of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that an agreement had been reached with the Syrian authorities on a joint military action against the IS towards the south of Damascus.

Majdalani, who arrived in Damascus on Monday for a meeting with Syrian officials regarding the situation in the Yarmouk camp, said that a joint military operation room would be formed between the Syrian army and the Syria-based Palestinian factions to coordinate the military campaign against the IS and allied extremists in the Yarmouk camp.

He said that the IS infiltration into Yarmouk had ended all the possibilities of a political solution to the crisis.

"We have agreed with the Syrian authorities and the Palestinian factions that all of the political options have been thwarted by the armed militants, such as the militants of the Islamic State," Majdalani said.

He said that the Palestinian role in the battle against the IS in Yarmouk camp was an integrative one, adding that Palestinian factions in Syria would take part in the battle to free the camp from the extremists.

Syria's Minister of National Reconciliation, Ali Haidar, said on Wednesday that a military operation in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees had become a "must" in view of the infiltration by the IS into that area.

The Yarmouk camp, located five kilometres south of Damascus, has seen furious battles over the past week, with the IS storming this large district with the help of the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

The Yarmouk camp is a large district in southern Damascus. Among its one million residents, 170,000 are Palestinians. Most of them fled to Syria in 1948 following the establishment of the Israeli state.