An explosion in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon killed an official from the Palestinian Fatah movement on Tuesday, members of the group said.

The dead man was identified as Fathi Zaydan, a Fatah official responsible for the Palestinian camp of Mieh Mieh in Sidon.

An Al Jazeera Arabic reporter in Beirut said Zaydan was leaving a meeting in Sidon and heading to Beirut when the blast went off.

Footage of the blast site near a Palestinian refugee camp showed a man's body lying next to a burning vehicle.

"His identification card was found near the car which exploded, which was also his," a source told the AFP news agency, adding that it was unclear if Zaydan had been in the car at the time.

READ MORE: Refugees seek lasting peace in Lebanon's Ain al-Hilweh

An army forensics unit arrived at the scene and cleared away scorched body parts lying by the flaming car, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

More than 450,000 Palestinians are registered in Lebanon with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, and most live in squalid conditions in 12 official refugee camps.

The camps are administered by Palestinian officials and security forces, rather than Lebanese authorities.

In recent years, tensions have grown between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and the Jund al-Sham group, especially in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, which is also near Sidon.

The rival factions in Ain al-Hilweh have clashed several times in the past year, with each side accusing the other of assassination attempts.