Families of Fatah al Islam militants holed up in the battered Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al Bared, north of Tripoli, were permitted to leave under a temporary truce with the army. Their evacuation clears the way for a possible final military assault to end more than three months of fighting between the militant group and the Lebanese Army. A spokesman for the Palestinian Clerics Association, which mediated the operation, said 22 women and 41 children left the camp in buses accompanied by army vehicles, bound for interrogation. Two children were taken to a hospital. “The battle days were not easy, and exhaustion features were apparent,” said Sheik Mohammad al-Hajj, the association’s spokesman. “But the army has promised to release them very quickly.” A senior military official said the army, which had been calling on the remaining civilians to leave the camp for weeks, might now open a final assault. “The army does not have to worry about injuring children or women anymore,” he said. Most of the camp’s 30,000 residents fled in May, early in the fighting. The army estimates that 70 militants remain inside. They have rejected calls to surrender.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company