Sidon (Lebanon): Lebanon is building wall near the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp to prevent jihadists from infiltrating, a military source has said.

The overcrowded and impoverished Ain al-Hilweh camp near the southern coastal city of Sidon has gained notoriety in recent years as a refuge for Muslim extremists and fugitives. It also saw deadly fighting last year between the Jund al-Sham Islamist group and members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

And in September the army said security forces had arrested a Palestinian refugee suspected of links to the Islamic State group who was in the camp.

“The construction of the wall began some time ago and the aim is to stop the infiltration of terrorists inside Ain al-Hilweh from nearby orchards,” the military source told AFP.

Social media users compared the wall to a controversial separation barrier which Israel has been building in the occupied West Bank since 2002.

A camp official, Fuad Othman, called the wall a “provocation”. Major General Mounir al-Maqdah, the head of the Palestinian security forces in Lebanon, criticised the construction of the wall. “The wall is causing psychological pressure for the Palestinian refugees,” said Mr Maqdah.