Bomb kills Palestinian official in Lebanon's Sidon

Beirut: A bomb in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon killed an official from the Palestinian Fatah movement on Tuesday, an official from the group said.
The man was identified as Fathi Zaydan, a Fatah official responsible for the Palestinian camp of Mieh Mieh in Sidon.
A photograph of the blast site near a Palestinian refugee camp showed a man's body lying next to a burning vehicle.
The official said he was killed by a bomb placed under his vehicle. Mieh Mieh camp, 4 km east of Sidon, is home to 5,250 Palestinian refugees, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinian refugees across the region.
The nearby Palestinian camp of Ain Al Hilweh has regularly been the scene of violent disputes between rival factions.
One man was killed and others injured earlier this month when one such dispute escalated into gunbattles.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's government agreed funding on Tuesday for new safety equipment for Beirut airport, where pressing security gaps have caused concern among senior officials in a city that has suffered bomb attacks by IS militants.
"The cabinet agreed to secure the funds necessary for airport security apparatus," Information Minister Ramzi Greige said in a statement after a cabinet meeting.
Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zeaiter last month said the airport needed at least $24 million to upgrade its security, including a new perimeter wall and baggage inspection equipment.
Beirut's security concerns have grown more acute since the outbreak of war in neighbouring Syria gave rise to the militant group IS and increased pressure on Lebanon's own delicate sectarian faultlines.
IS and other groups have carried out several bombings in Lebanon in recent years, including a suicide attack in south Beirut, where the airport is located, that killed 43 people in November.
Zeaiter has said Beirut airport remains among the safest in the world, but Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk has compared its security problems to those in Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh, where a bomb planted on a Russian plane killed 224 people in October.
"There are security gaps in Beirut airport which must be plugged," he said last month.
On Sunday the police detained two Lebanese employees of a Beirut airport service company over contacts they had with "terrorist parties", security sources said, but they were released late on Monday after they were found to be innocent.
Reuters