An UNRWA school occupied by an armed group opposing Fatah in Aug. 2023. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine)
The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced on Saturday that three of its schools, which had closed at the end of July due to fighting between rival Palestinian factions in the Palestinian refugee camp Ain al-Hilweh, near Saida (southern Lebanon), will reopen on Monday.
Classes will resume in three of the eight buildings managed by UNRWA (those in Falougha, Hattine and Qobbeih), after the unexploded ordnance has been removed.
From Feb. 1, pupils enrolled at the Marj Ben Amer school, currently housed outside the camp, will move to Ain al-Hilweh and be accommodated in the Qobbeih school building on a rotational basis.
Pupils enrolled in schools in Bissan, Samoa, Naqoura and Safed will continue their studies outside the camp due to the squatting of their school buildings by armed groups.
Deadly clashes broke out last summer between Islamist factions and the nationalist Fatah movement in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, leaving a dozen people dead, hundreds displaced and causing extensive damage. In September, the Palestinian militants agreed to a ceasefire.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour.