TYRE, Lebanon - Thousands of Palestinian refugees held demonstrations in several camps in Lebanon on Sunday against Israel’s lockdown on Gaza and urged Arab states and human rights groups to take action.

Men, women and children took to the streets in four camps near the southern coastal cities of Sidon and Tyre, and in one camp in the north of the country demanding an end to Israel’s deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The protesters carried banners that read "end the siege on Gaza" and "the Palestinian people are dying in front of the eyes of the Arabs". Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, the Lebanon chief of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement, urged the United Nations to take action saying that what was taking place amounted to ethnic cleansing. "This is a well-organized crime to eradicate the Palestinian people," he said in a statement, adding that human rights groups must be given access to Gaza.

At the Beddawi refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli, some 2,000 people chanted "death to Israel" as they marched through the camp.

They were joined by refugees from the nearby Nahr al-Bared camp, which was the site of a fierce battle last summer between an Al-Qaeda-inspired group and the Lebanese army.

In the camps of Rashidiyeh, Bourj Al-Shemali and Al-Bass, near Tyre, and the camp of Ain al-Helweh, near Sidon, prayers were also held for the residents of Gaza.

Israel has escalated operations in Hamas-run Gaza since Tuesday, killing at least 36 militants in the biggest flare-up of violence since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory in June. It also imposed a complete closure of Gaza to apply pressure on Hamas to stem militant rocket fire, forcing the the territory’s sole power plant to shut down for want of fuel. - AFP