As crushes of cars negotiated passage on the narrow streets, a driver stuck his head out the window and pointed to a cameraman filming a dark alleyway. “If you’re from al-Ebriya, you better leave the camp,” he shouted, a play on words replacing the name of the Al-Arabiya TV station, which means Arabian, with “the Hebrew.”

The man’s joke might be indicative of the winds of change blowing in the camp, where a station such as Al-Arabiya, which is close to the mainstream Fatah Movement that used to be more dominant in the camp, would not be as welcome as a station that has ties with Hamas, such as Al-Jazeera.

Since the end of the Israeli offensive on Gaza last January, ostensibly launched to deal a blow to Hamas, support for the group has surged. Only a few posters of PLO founder Yasser Arafat remain plastered on the camp’s crumbling walls, replaced by pictures of Hamas leaders or of Samir Kantar, the Lebanese militant released from Israeli custody after serving over 30 years for a quadruple murder as part of a prisoner swap between Hezbollah and the Jewish State this summer.

And with its newfound support, the militant group has allegedly begun behaving. Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, a senior Fatah representative, accused Hamas on Monday of arming its members in Palestinian camps and of inciting violence.

He told reporters that Hamas militants killed 20 Fatah fighters in Gaza in January during Israel’s siege on Gaza and shot 120 others in the knees in an attempt to cripple them, as well as seizing Fatah members’ phones and putting some under house arrest.

Lebanese daily Al-Balad seized on the surge of support for Hamas in the camps when it reported last week that new militant organization called the “Jihad Movement for the Victory of Gaza" had been formed in Ain al-Hilweh by a Palestinian man named Jamal Hamad with the assistance of Ghandi Sahmarani, a Lebanese wanted by authorities on several terrorist charges. The report read that the members of this new militant group had been trained in the Bekaa Valley and were preparing to carry out rocket launching and bombing operations, among which one targeting the Egyptian Embassy in Bir Hassan in Beirut.

The heads of several political factions in the camp interviewed by NOW Lebanon unanimously denied the Al-Balad allegations. According to Abu Sharif – a spokesperson for Osbat al-Ansar, a radical faction accused by the Lebanese government of the assassination of four magistrates in the city of Saida, among other terrorist attacks – Jamal Hamad is currently employed in a sweet shop and has retired from political life after being an active member of Osbat al-Ansar.

Hajj Maher Oueid, head of the Ansar Allah party, concurred that Hamad has kept out of politics since leaving Osbat al-Ansar, though he noted that Hamad was the maternal cousin of Osbat al-Ansar founder Sheikh Hisham Shreidi, who was assassinated in the 1990s.

“He was also a member of the Liberation Front, before he joined Osbat al-Ansar,” explained Mounir Maqdah, the head of the camp’s Fatah branch. Maqdah told NOW Lebanon he was surprised by the al-Balad report. “The article featured in al-Balad makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and appears to be born from the imagination of its author.” He said that the linkages between people reported in the article were false, “as it is common knowledge in the camp that the individuals named by the article are in reality not in touch with one another.” Maqdah added that Hamad’s supposed conspirator, Ghandi Sahmarani, had been living in Ain al-Hilweh for over 20 years and was formerly a member of Jund al-Sham, a group violently opposed to Osbat al-Ansar.

The timing of the al-Balad report also raised some eyebrows. “If such a movement was to ever be established, it would have chosen the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza,” said Sheikh Jamal Khattab, the head of the Islamic Mujahid Movement in the camp and imam of the Nour Mosque there.

Venturing deeper into the camp, NOW Lebanon tracked down Jamal Hamad, who declared he was insulted by the article’s allegations. “If I wanted to take any action, I would do so openly. I am personally against shedding the blood of Muslims and staging attacks on civilian populations or residential areas,” he fumed. Hamad denied any involvement with Sahmarani, saying he hadn’t spoken to the fugitive five months, since the murder of Jund al-Sham leader Shehadeh Jawhar.

“Today with the approach of the Lebanese parliamentary elections, I believe that I, as well as other Ain al-Hilweh inhabitants, could be employed as scapegoats in the event of any terrorist attack, which could be utilized by some factions as a way to postpone the election,” he said.

Osbat al-Ansar spokesperson Abu Sharif took a similar tone, accusing the media and certain Intelligence services of fabricating the Jihad for the Victory of Gaza story. “Intelligence apparatuses have been known to use Islamists as a pawn in their game, as witnessed in the various terrorist attacks that have taken place around Lebanon as well as during the Nahr al-Bared events. I believe, once again something might be in store in Ain al-Hilweh,” he said.

Whether or not the al-Balad story was true, change is swirling around the Palestinian camp, where despite a recent period of calm, residents are lending their support to Islamic factions such as Hamas and moving away from the more moderate Fatah. The outcome of the Lebanese parliamentary elections will certainly have an affect the balance of power in the camp and on the radicalization of the Palestinian street, as unified Lebanese leaders can reach out to Islamist factions and make life less of a hotbed for strife in the camps.