A man sits on a chair near a mural depicting late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat in an alley of the Burj al Barajneh camp for Palestinian refugees in Beirut's southern suburbs. AFP
The Lebanese and Palestinian sides agreed on starting a plan "to remove weapons from the camps, beginning mid-June in the Beirut camps, and other camps will follow," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps -- where Abbas's Fatah movement, the Hamas movement and other armed groups are present -- and leaves the factions to handle security.
Abbas has been in Beirut since Wednesday for talks on disarming the Palestinian refugee camps as Lebanon seeks to impose its authority on all its territory.
The deal came during the first meeting of a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee announced Wednesday to follow up on the situation in the camps.
The meeting was also attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
A statement from the committee released by the premier's office said it agreed to "launch the process of handing over weapons according to a specific timetable, accompanied by practical steps to boltser the economic and social rights of Palestinian refugees".
Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA, many living in 12 overcrowded official camps.
Many are descendants of Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their homeland during the Nakba, which marked the creation of Israel in 1948.
They face a variety of legal restrictions in Lebanon, including on employment.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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