Syrian jet fires rocket at Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus Palestinians in Yarmouk camp, Damascus, demonstrate in 1998 in support of then president Hafez al-Assad. The civil war has tested their loyalties. Photograph: Saleh Rifai/AP At least one rocket from a Syrian air force jet has killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians in the largest refugee camp in Damascus, sending thousands of residents fleeing for other areas of the capital now wracked by civil war. Sunday's attack is believed to be the first strike against the Yarmouk camp by an air force jet, the most potent weapon used so far by the regime in its defence of the capital. The rocket hit a mosque near the centre of the camp, killing at least 25 people, Reuters reports. There was panic in the area near the mosque. Videos posted online showed the dead and injured being collected by residents. The exodus sparked predictions that the flood of refugees into neighbouring countries, which is already straining resources in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, will further intensify, with Syria's Palestinian population of 500,000 increasingly caught in the middle of the bitter and protracted fighting. The Yarmouk camp has steadily been drawn into the fighting in Damascus over the past month. Though hit by an artillery shell in August, which killed 20 people, the camp had largely remained a relative safe haven as security disintegrated elsewhere in the capital amid rebel attempts to advance towards the regime's power base. Palestinians in Syria had enjoyed the protection of the government for much of the past 40 years. However their loyalties have been tested as the civil war has intensified. The large majority of the Palestinian population in Syria is Sunni, as is the opposition movement which is attempting to oust the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect is aligned to Shia Islam. Roughly half of Syria's Palestinian refugees are thought to remain supportive of the regime, while the other half have grown hostile to it as the 21-month crisis has escalated. The attack is believed to have occurred after sporadic fighting inside the camp over the past fortnight between rebel units and Palestinian factions loyal to Assad, headed by Ahmed Jibril, a veteran local leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general committees.