Blast hits Palestinian camp in Lebanon, leaves wounded

An explosion in a storage depot rocked a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon on Friday injuring a number of people, Lebanese and Palestinian sources said.

The blast hit near a mosque in the Burj al-Shemali camp outside Tyre, a Lebanese military source said, adding he had no exact casualty figure. 

The source said the explosion went off in an ammunition dump kept by militants of Islamist group Hamas alongside food and other stores.

But a Palestinian official denied the presence of any weapons or ammunition in the stores, saying oxygen bottles had exploded.

Camp residents said firefighters were still battling to put out a huge blaze.

One resident, who gave her name only as Maha, said she heard a first explosion followed by a cascade of secondary blasts.

A photographer reported several ambulances entering the camp and Lebanese troops deploying around its perimeter.

Lebanon hosts tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, most of whom live in the country's 12 camps. Unofficially, they are said to number as many as half a million.

By longstanding agreement, the Lebanese army does not enter the camps, leaving security inside to Palestinian factions.