NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon, May 23, 2007 (AFP) - In cars and pickup trucks, thousands of refugees fled a besieged Palestinian camp in northern Lebanon on Wednesday as the guns fell silent after three days of ferocious fighting between Islamist militiamen and the Lebanese army.

The situation appeared calm in the Nahr al-Bared camp, an impoverished shantytown battered into a war zone by three days of relentless army shelling aimed at wiping out an Al-Qaeda inspired Sunni extremist group.

Men, women and children continued to pour out of the camp in cars and pick-up trucks towards the Beddawi refugee camp further south or to the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli, an AFP correspondent said.

The refugees have been fleeing since the two sides halted fire on Tuesday after three days of gunbattles around the camp and in Tripoli that have killed 68 people and wounded scores more.

Relief agencies were expected to bring in more aid to Nahr al-Bared where more than 30,000 refugees had been caught in the line of fire.

"We were running for shelter when a shell hit nearby," eight-year-old Hussam said as he lay on a hospital bed in Beddawi, his small body peppered with shrapnel wounds suffered when a shell exploded on Tuesday.

"I was wounded along with my two brothers. I don't know where my father is."

It was the bloodiest internal feuding since the 1975-1990 civil war and stoked fears that it could spread to other Palestinian camps and further shake the security of a country riven by sectarian and political tensions.

Although the truce appeared to be holding, a UN official said two Palestinian civilians were shot dead when aid trucks moved in with food, medical supplies and generators on Tuesday.

"We don't know the source of the fire, and we had to leave the camp immediately," said United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokeswoman Hoda Samra. All the food and medical supplies were successfully offloaded, but the water was hit and spilled.

Hajj Rifaat, an official from the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah said those who fled Nahr al-Bared would be offered refuge in the 16,000-resident Beddawi camp.

"But we will certainly be quickly overwhelmed if the flow of refugees continues at this rate," he said. "The problem will quickly become one of being able to provide extra food."

In Tripoli, 10 kilometres (six miles) from Nahr al-Bared, local residents were taking in refugees from the camp, putting them up in schools, an AFP correspondent said.

Sultan Abul Aynayn, the head of Fatah in Lebanon, issued an urgent appeal for humanitarian organisations to come to the aid of the camp's residents, saying they were "totally destitute."

EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana, in Beirut for talks with leaders on both sides of the political divide, had appealed for a halt to the bloodshed on Tuesday.

"I am hoping very much for calm," he told a news conference after meeting Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

The United States expressed its full support for Siniora and said it was considered providing him extra military aid.

"The Siniora government is fighting against a very tough extremist foe," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "But Lebanon is doing the right thing to try to protect its population, to assert its sovereignty and so we are very supportive of the Siniora government and what it is trying to do."

The United States, which provided 40 million dollars in military aid to Lebanon last year and five million so far in 2007, confirmed that it received a request from Beirut for additional assistance and the White House said it was being considered.

The fragile security situation in Lebanon was underscored by a bomb blast in Beirut on Monday that wounded 10 people a day after a woman was killed in a similar attack in the capital.

According to army and Palestinian sources, 30 troops and 18 militants have been killed along with 19 Palestinian refugees and one Lebanese civilian.

Under a four decades-old arrangement, the camps remain outside the authority of the Lebanese government, leaving security to Palestinian armed factions.

Abul Aynayn had warned Tuesday that continued shelling of Nahr al-Bared could trigger an uprising by refugees in other camps, which house about half of Lebanon's estimated 400,000 Palestinians.

"No Palestinian, or Palestinian faction in Lebanon will accept seeing the Palestinian people slaughtered in a collective punishment as is happening in Nahr al-Bared."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon demanded an immediate end to the "criminal attacks" by Islamist extremists and deplored the killings during the UN relief mission.

Lebanese officials have accused Fatah al-Islam of working for Syrian intelligence to stir up trouble. The group's Palestinian leader, Shaker al-Abssi, slipped in to Lebanon last year after serving three years in a Syrian jail.

But Syria denied any ties with the group.

Lebanon's government has been paralysed for months by feuding between opponents of former power broker Damascus and pro-Syrian factions including Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which fought last summer's war with Israel.

Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2005 amid an international furore over the murder of five-time prime minister Rafiq Hariri, for which it was widely blamed, but it still wields enormous influence.

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