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Arab World

Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon on Alert in Wake of Gaza Escalation

People hold Palestinian flags during a rally to express solidarity with Palestinians, in Kfar Kila village near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, October 8, 2023. (Reuters)
People hold Palestinian flags during a rally to express solidarity with Palestinians, in Kfar Kila village near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, October 8, 2023. (Reuters)
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Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon on Alert in Wake of Gaza Escalation

People hold Palestinian flags during a rally to express solidarity with Palestinians, in Kfar Kila village near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, October 8, 2023. (Reuters)
People hold Palestinian flags during a rally to express solidarity with Palestinians, in Kfar Kila village near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, October 8, 2023. (Reuters)

Head of Hamas’ National Relations Abroad Ali Baraka denied on Monday claims that the Al-Aqsa Storm operation against Israel was planned by officials that included “resistance axis” members in Beirut.

In southern Lebanon, Palestinians rallied at the border with Israel in support of the operation and to condemn the Israeli assault on Gaza. Some demonstrators threw rocks towards Israel, while others attempted to infiltrate the border, leading to clashes.

Baraka told Asharq Al-Awsat: “It would be difficult to rein in the people given Israel’s vicious retaliation.”

He did not rule out the possibility of operations being launched from Lebanon.

Israel’s military said early Tuesday that a deputy Israeli commander was killed in clashes on the northern border with Lebanon.

The military identified the deputy commander as Alim Abdallah, but did not specify the exact circumstances of his death.

Palestinian militants from the Islamic Jihad group slipped from Lebanon into Israel, prompting Israeli shelling into southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s Hezbollah party said five of its members were killed, and it retaliated with a volley of rockets and mortars at two Israeli army bases across the border.

Baraka made his remarks prior to these developments.

“We had hoped that all fronts would have been opened against the enemy. We could have reclaimed all of our occupied territories,” he added.

Hamas was the sole party that planned the Al-Aqsa Storm surprise operation against Israel, he stressed, denying that Beirut, Damascus or Tehran were involved.

“We are a resistance defending our land and we take our decisions independently,” Baraka stated.

Leading Fatah member in Lebanon Mounir al-Maqdah told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Palestinian refugee camps are on alert.

The Palestinian people in the Palestinian territories or abroad are one, he declared.

“Every Palestinian, no matter where they are, must be prepared to come to the aid of our people in Gaza to defeat the occupation,” he added.

“We will not remain silent over the massacres that are taking place in Gaza. Should the assault continue, we are prepared to wage a major battle that would completely end the occupation,” he warned.

On whether he supports attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon, he replied: “We are waiting to see how things develop. Our people are fighting on their land and we are prepared to stand by their side and fight with them.”

Lebanon is hosting some 230,000 Palestinian refugees, according to statistics from the Central Administration of Statistics and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. They are spread throughout 12 refugee camps in Lebanon.

In an outdated survey conducted 11 years ago, UNRWA says some 483,000 Palestinians are living in Lebanon.

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Arab World

UN Identifies 214 Firms Linked to Israeli Settlements

Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
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UN Identifies 214 Firms Linked to Israeli Settlements

Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)

The United Nations on Friday released a fresh update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, listing 214 firms from 11 countries.

Since last year's update, the UN rights office added an additional 61 companies to the database and had removed five companies.

But major firms like Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and TripAdviser remained on the list.

The report, which was harshly criticized by Israel, served as a "reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities", UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

Firms, he said, "are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses".

While most of the companies were based in Israel, others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States.

There were two Spanish companies removed from the database since last year, along with one each from Canada, Israel and Portugal.

The list was first produced in 2020 after a UN Human Rights Council resolution called for a database of firms that profited from business in illegally occupied Palestinian territory.

The UN rights office was asked to list companies found to be taking part in any of 10 activities, including construction, surveillance, demolitions and destruction of agricultural land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Despite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just twice before, in 2023 and 2025.

The list is not exhaustive.

It only reviews companies about which it received submissions during set timeframes, the last of which closed in June 2024.

In all, it has received submissions about 596 companies, of which it has so far reviewed 381.

Israel, which has been harshly critical of the database from the start, slammed it again Friday as "a distorted mechanism... established solely to persecute the Jewish state".

The country's mission to the UN in Geneva charged that it was "a political tool" used by the rights office "to advance a smear campaign against business enterprises that committed no wrongdoing".

Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967 in an occupation considered illegal under international law.

 

 

 

 

Arab World

Lebanon PM Stresses Need to 'Avert Vacuum' if UN Force Leaves

16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
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Lebanon PM Stresses Need to 'Avert Vacuum' if UN Force Leaves

16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)

Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam insisted at the UN Friday on the need to "avert the vacuum" that would be caused by withdrawing the UN peacekeeping mission deployed in the south of his country without a viable replacement.

"What we wish to stress here and today is the need to avert the vacuum that UNIFIL's withdrawal could create, were it to take place without agreement on a new international force to replace it," he said.

Arab World

South Lebanon Children Return to School Destroyed by Israel Strike

Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
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South Lebanon Children Return to School Destroyed by Israel Strike

Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)

In southern Lebanon, eight-year-old Yara Ajami started the academic year this week in a doorless, windowless classroom after her school was destroyed by an Israeli strike.

Well known in the area for its excellence, Ajami's elementary school in Burj Qalaway was struck by Israel in May.

"We are happy to be back (to school), but we were happier before. We used to draw, play, but now there are no desks or chairs," the young girl with braided hair said as she climbed a bare concrete staircase.

Rather than go to their old school building, Ajami and the other students returning to classes after the summer break on Monday were diverted to a nearby structure still under construction that was being built to house preschoolers.

The sun shone through unglazed windows into unfinished classrooms as children followed their lessons, while outside clumps of twisted rebar jutted from the ground like dead bushes where walls used to stand.

The students come from areas heavily hit by Israeli attacks and most were displaced during the war, with some -- like Ajami -- returning to find their homes damaged or destroyed.

- 'Sadness in their eyes' -

"There is sadness in their eyes, each one of them has a story," school principal May Mehdi told AFP from the courtyard.

"But I am happy they are here," she said, showing on her phone what the school, her pride, once looked like.

Mehdi does not have an office in the current building, which does not even have a teacher's lounge.

Around 250 students are registered in the 24-classroom school, which used to have at least 600 school-goers before the start of the latest war in March, when Hezbollah attacked Israel in support of Tehran, following US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Israel responded with major airstrikes and a ground invasion that killed more than 4,300 people, including 261 children according to Lebanese authorities.

More than a million people were displaced, but more than 800,000 returned since June, when a US-Iran memorandum of understanding and a Lebanon-Israel framework agreement significantly reduced the violence.

In some schools in the south that have been converted into shelters, displaced people and students now share the space, with floors reserved for each group.

The Israeli army has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of using civilian buildings, including schools, to launch attacks or hide weapons.

Rights groups, however, have accused Israel of possible war crimes in its war with Hezbollah.

Lebanese authorities accuse Israel of systematically destroying villages in the south, including homes, schools, places of worship and water and electricity infrastructure.

- 'Destruction, insecurity, displacement' -

Many of Burj Qalaway's children were unable to start the school year, being still displaced or fearing to return to the town, less than a kilometre (mile) away from Israeli troops occupying a swathe of the south.

On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit Qantara, a nearby village.

Earlier this month, UNICEF said that nearly 100,000 students in Lebanon were unable to return to their schools for the academic year due to "damage, destruction, insecurity, or displacement".

The UNICEF report also stated that 436 schools were damaged by the war, while 37 were completely destroyed.

The Burj Qalaway school previously boasted a laboratory, a computer room, and an interactive room.

Government-funded prefabricated units are being installed on the school premises where rubble has not yet been cleared.

- 'Make my father proud' -

Teacher Hoda Najdi gave her class while emphasizing to her students the importance of continuing their education and achieving good results despite the difficult circumstances.

"My home was destroyed and so was my school... (but) the students give us the strength and will to continue," the 42-year-old told AFP.

Student Mohammed Mozannar, who was displaced from one place to another in Beirut during the war, said he was "very happy to be back to make up for" the lost year.

"I had no books, no phone and no internet" to follow lessons online, he said.

"I now want to make my father proud."

But the return to school also brought back painful memories for some, like 14-year-old Rawan Fakih.

"I remembered the activities we used to do, I remembered how stressful exams were... and I remembered my friend who was killed" by an Israeli strike, she said.