RASHIDIYEH, Lebanon, Dec 9 (AFP) - Several thousand refugees treated new PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei to a warm welcome as they visited the Rashidiyeh camp in southern Lebanon on Thursday.
The leaders arrived in Beirut on Wednesday on a two-day official visit to Lebanon -- the first in more than two decades by the Palestinian leadership.
After a welcome from the chief of Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Aynan, Abbas and Qorei joined the crowd in reciting a verse from the Koran in memory of the late Palestinian leader.
The podium was festooned with Palestinian and Fatah flags. At its foot, a poster of Jerusalem and Arafat said: "Welcome Abu Mazen, Palestinian Authority presidential candidate, in the shadow of our martyr, Abu Ammar (Arafat)".
Abbas -- also known as Abu Mazen -- is Fatah's candidate in the January 9 election of a successor to Arafat, who died on November 11.
Another giant poster showed Arafat surrounded by pictures of other Palestinian leaders who have died in combat or been assassinated by Israel.
Arafat had nicknamed the Rashidiyeh camp, home to 24,000 refugees, "RPG children's camp," in reference to the first rocket-propelled grenades fired at Israeli vehicles during the 1978 invasion.
12/09/2004 14:36 GMT - AFP