Leaders in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps say they are trying to keep the areas from becoming flashpoints for violence ignited by the crisis in neighbouring Syria but warn that the task is becoming increasingly difficult with hardline Islamist groups on the ascendancy.

On Friday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrapped up a three-day visit to Lebanon, where he has been reassuring officials that the country's 12 Palestinian refugee camps would not be drawn into the fallout from Syria's war.

Children carry a hand-made kite painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag at their refugee camp. Credit:Reuters

But in the cramped, ramshackle streets of Ain Helweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp and home to a plethora of armed political factions, brewing sectarianism is difficult to suppress, camp officials said.

The sectarian politics on the rise in Syria and Lebanon ''reinforces the militant radicals'', said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut. ''The mainstream leadership can try and keep the lid on it but puffs of steam will erupt now and then,'' he said.