BEIRUT, (PIC)
Anxiety inside Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps is no longer limited to shrinking healthcare and education services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
As calls to sideline or replace the agency intensify, refugees are voicing deeper concerns about the future of their cause itself.
Residents and popular committee officials in the Shatila and Burj al-Barajneh refugee camps say UNRWA is far more than a humanitarian organization.
“The UNRWA stands as an international acknowledgment of the Palestinian refugee issue and its connection to the right of return enshrined in UN Resolution 194,” officials said, warning that any attempt to undermine the agency’s mandate would carry serious humanitarian and political consequences.
Growing pressure on UNRWA
These concerns come as UNRWA faces mounting political and financial pressure alongside a chronic funding crisis that has already affected the level of services provided to Palestinian refugees across its areas of operation. Following the so-called Board of Peace declaration this July that it saw no place for UNRWA in a “new Gaza.”
Meanwhile, the US mission to the United Nations urged donor countries to channel support toward the Board’s projects instead of the UN agency. Observers viewed the move as an effort to replace UNRWA with temporary arrangements detached from the refugee question and the rights attached to it.
Moreover, a study by researcher Alon Sahar for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation highlighted the activities of political and media groups in the United States, Germany, and Israel that have sought to influence public opinion and policymakers in ways that weaken UNRWA’s standing, halt funding, and dilute its connection to the Palestinian refugee issue.
Refugees’ concerns about impact of cuts
Maysaa al-Daher, a refugee at Shatila camp told the PIC that the effects of budget cuts are impossible to ignore, explaining that clinic hours have been reduced, and some facilities now close several days a week, which made life much harder for patients.
“Nowadays, refugees increasingly find themselves paying out of pocket for medications and treatments that were once provided or subsidized by the agency,” al-Daher highlighted, pointing out that the UNRWA previously covered the costs of certain surgeries through its health programs.
For his part, Mohammad Othman, another resident of Shatila, said that UNRWA’s role extends well beyond humanitarian assistance to providing jobs and service projects.
Othman stressed that the agency helps keep the refugee issue present on the international stage, warning that its collapse would lead to higher unemployment, disrupt sanitation and community services and severely affect both education and relief programs.
Moreover, Um Osama al-Maqdah echoed those fears, describing UNRWA as a lifeline for many patients who rely on regular medication and clinic services.
“When working days are reduced, people often have to wait several days just to see a doctor or obtain treatment,” al-Maqdah said.
In Burj al-Barajneh camp, Um Khamis said any suspension of UNRWA operations would dramatically worsen already difficult living conditions.
“Medical care and hospitalization costs are rising,” she explained, affirming that social assistance has been cut back, and one of her relatives recently had to pay dozens of dollars for medical tests that the agency used to cover.
More than service provider
Head of the Popular Committees in Shatila camp, Abu al-Nour, highlighted that the real danger of targeting UNRWA lies not only in the loss of services but in the attempt to dismantle the international framework recognizing Palestinian refugees.
“Ending UNRWA means targeting the right of return, Resolution 194, and the legal and political status of Palestinian refugees,” Abu al-Nour stressed, adding that the agency was established in response to the forced displacement of Palestinians with the refugees’ issue as its main mission.
Despite criticism of some of its services, Abu al-Nour insisted that preserving UNRWA is a national necessity.
“As long as the agency exists, international recognition of the refugee issue remains firmly in place,” he said, warning of growing efforts aimed at resettlement or encouraging migration at the expense of the right of return.
Camps facing greater challenges
Secretary of the Popular Committee in Burj al-Barajneh, Issa Ghadban, cautioned that any additional reductions would have serious repercussions throughout the camps.
Ghadban noted that UNRWA has already halted a number of home restoration programs and service projects, even as many houses inside the camps have become structurally unsafe and vulnerable to collapse.
He called for the agency’s continued operation wherever Palestinian refugees reside, stressing that the need for UNRWA has become even more urgent amid the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where large numbers of families have lost their homes and are now living in shelters and tents.
Future of refugee cause
A refugee from Shatila, Imran, believes UNRWA was a political decision before it was a humanitarian one.
“The pressure we are seeing today suggests there is a broader effort to end that role,” Imran said, adding that such cuts would inevitably affect the future of the refugee cause.
Meanwhile, in Burj al-Barajneh camp, refugee Jamil Abu Layla warned that the disappearance of UNRWA would deprive thousands of families of access to medical treatment at a time when healthcare costs continue to soar and aid continues to decline.
Moreover, Abed Haider stressed that sustaining support for Palestinian refugees is essential to strengthening their resilience until they attain their right of return.
“The historic responsibility toward the Palestine issue has not disappeared,” Haider said.
Furthermore, Popular Committee official in Ain al-Hilweh camp, Abu Karim, described UNRWA as “a right and an achievement that no one has the authority to abolish.”
Abu Karim firmly rejected any reduction in the agency’s work and called for UNRWA to be shielded from political disputes.
He affirmed that the agency’s mission can only end when refugees achieve their right of return, self-determination, and compensation.
For many Palestinians in Lebanon’s refugee camps, the future of UNRWA is about far more than schools, clinics, or aid packages. It is intertwined with the future of the Palestinian refugee issue itself. For them, the agency remains one of the most visible international institutions embodying ongoing recognition of refugee rights, chief among them, the right of return.