BEIRUT — Lebanon is building wall near the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp to prevent extremists from infiltrating, a military source said Monday.

In September, the army said security forces had arrested a Palestinian refugee suspected of links to ISIS who was in the camp.

“The construction of the wall began some time ago and the aim is to stop the infiltration of terrorists inside Ain al-Hilweh from nearby orchards,” the military source told AFP.

“It’s a security measure” that was taken after the arrest of “fugitive terrorists” who had taken shelter in the camp, he said.

Social media users compared the wall to a controversial separation barrier which Israel has been building in the occupied West Bank since 2002.

“Soon, the children of Ain al-Hilweh will draw pictures depicting Palestine and freedom on the wall of shame,” one person said online.

A camp official, Fuad Othman, called the wall a “provocation.”

Major General Mounir al-Maqdah, the head of the Palestinian security forces in Lebanon, criticized the construction of the wall.

“The wall, parts of which have been erected, is causing psychological pressure for the Palestinian refugees,” said Maqdah.

“We wouldn’t have needed a separation barrier and watchtowers if the Lebanese authorities had, years ago, found a solution to the Palestinian presence in Lebanon,” he added.

The military source said Lebanon “is not building a prison or a separation wall, but a wall for protection”, adding residents would be able to go in and out from the camp, except from the western side.

More than 61,000 Palestinian refugees live in Ain al-Hilweh, including 6,000 who recently fled the war in Syria, according to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.