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Officials Warn of Devastating Consequences If UNRWA Funding Is Not Restored

Members of the Zourub family, displaced from the central Gaza Strip, keep warm by a fire outside their tent, near the border separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip 27 February 2024. (EPA)
Members of the Zourub family, displaced from the central Gaza Strip, keep warm by a fire outside their tent, near the border separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip 27 February 2024. (EPA)
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Officials Warn of Devastating Consequences If UNRWA Funding Is Not Restored

Members of the Zourub family, displaced from the central Gaza Strip, keep warm by a fire outside their tent, near the border separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip 27 February 2024. (EPA)
Members of the Zourub family, displaced from the central Gaza Strip, keep warm by a fire outside their tent, near the border separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip 27 February 2024. (EPA)

If funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is not restored soon, it will have devastating consequences for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, officials warned on Wednesday.

“The decision to stop funding UNRWA constitutes a collective punishment for every Palestinian inside Palestine and in the diaspora countries, especially in Lebanon,” Lebanese Member of Parliament Fadi Alame told reporters Wednesday after touring the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon with an UNRWA delegation.

Some 250,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon depend on UNRWA for services including healthcare, schooling and cash assistance for the poorest families.

Last month, Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack, prompting the United States and other donors to suspend funding. UNRWA immediately fired the 10 surviving employees and has launched investigations. The agency says if funding is not restored, it will have to halt operations in April.

Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA’s director in Lebanon, said that a halt to the agency’s services would have “security and stability” as well as “humanitarian” consequences.

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Libya's Eastern Parliament Approves Transitional Justice Law in Unity Move, MPs Say

Members of Libyan legislatures known as the High Council of State, based in Tripoli in the country's west, and the House of Representatives, based in Benghazi in the east, meet for talks in Bouznika, Morocco, December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ahmed Eljechtimi/File Photo
Members of Libyan legislatures known as the High Council of State, based in Tripoli in the country's west, and the House of Representatives, based in Benghazi in the east, meet for talks in Bouznika, Morocco, December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ahmed Eljechtimi/File Photo
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Libya's Eastern Parliament Approves Transitional Justice Law in Unity Move, MPs Say

Members of Libyan legislatures known as the High Council of State, based in Tripoli in the country's west, and the House of Representatives, based in Benghazi in the east, meet for talks in Bouznika, Morocco, December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ahmed Eljechtimi/File Photo
Members of Libyan legislatures known as the High Council of State, based in Tripoli in the country's west, and the House of Representatives, based in Benghazi in the east, meet for talks in Bouznika, Morocco, December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ahmed Eljechtimi/File Photo

Libya's eastern-based parliament has approved a national reconciliation and transitional justice law, three lawmakers said, a measure aimed at reunifying the oil-producing country after over a decade of factional conflict.

The House of Representatives (HoR) spokesperson, Abdullah Belaihaq, said on the X platform that the legislation was passed on Tuesday by a majority of the session's attendees in Libya's largest second city Benghazi.

However, implementing the law could be challenging as Libya has been divided since a 2014 civil war that spawned two rival administrations vying for power in east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

"I hope that it (the law) will be in effect all over the country and will not face any difficulty," House member Abdulmenam Alorafi told Reuters by phone on Wednesday.

The United Nations mission to Libya has repeatedly called for an inclusive, rights-based transitional justice and reconciliation process in the North African country.

A political process to end years of institutional division and outright warfare has been stalled since an election scheduled for December 2021 collapsed amid disputes over the eligibility of the main candidates.

In Tripoli, there is the Government of National Unity (GNU) under Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah that was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021, but the parliament no longer recognizes its legitimacy. Dbeibah has vowed not to cede power to a new government without national elections.

There are two competing legislative bodies - the HoR that was elected in 2014 as the national parliament with a four-year mandate to oversee a political transition, and the High Council of State in Tripoli formed as part of a 2015 political agreement and drawn from a parliament first elected in 2012.

The Tripoli-based Presidential Council, which came to power with GNU, has been working on a reconciliation project and holding "a comprehensive conference" with the support of the UN and African Union. But it has been unable to bring all rival groups together because of their continuing differences.