Palestinian factions began handing over some of the weapons held in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut to the Lebanese army Thursday, an initial step in implementing a plan officials announced three months earlier for removing arms from the camps.

It was a modest first step. One pickup left the camp loaded with light weapons packed in bags. The butts of machine guns could be seen protruding from some of the sacks.

The decision to remove weapons from the camps was announced in May during a visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Lebanon, during which he and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced that arms would be consolidated under the authority of the Lebanese government.

The step of removing weapons from the camps was seen as a precursor to the much more difficult step of disarming the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which last year fought a bruising war with Israel that ended in a ceasefire in November.

The group has been under domestic and international pressure since then to give up its remaining arsenal, which it has so far refused to do.

Implementation of the plan for the Palestinian camps was delayed amid disagreements among and within the various Palestinian factions operating in Lebanon, which include Abbas’ Fatah movement, the rival Hamas group and a range of other Islamist and leftist groups, over the mechanism for handing over the weapons.

Ramez Dimashkieh, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a government body that serves as an interlocutor between Palestinian refugees and officials, said in a statement that the handover of weapons Thursday at the Burj al-Barajneh camp south of Beirut “will be the first step, with further batches to be delivered in the coming weeks from Burj al-Barajneh camp and the rest of the camps.”

However, the extent to which the decision would actually be implemented remained unclear. Officials with the Palestinian factions said only “illegal” weapons would be handed over, not those belonging to organized factions. They also said personal light weapons would not be included.

Badih al-Habet, a spokesperson for Fatah in Beirut told reporters that that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had acknowledged that “personal weapons are part of Arab and national culture."

It also remains unclear whether all factions will abide by the decision. Representatives of Hamas and the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad did not respond to requests for comment.

AP video shot by Ali Sharafeddine