A building that houses one of the offices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut in February 2024. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
An UNRWA employee in Lebanon has been suspended for "alleged violation" of the rules of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, a source at the organization confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour on Saturday. Employees of the agency accuse the UN of suspending the employee for his political stance on the Gaza war.
"One of our employees has been suspended, and an investigation has been opened for alleged violation of UNRWA's work rules. This is a standard procedure," the source said.
In a press release published on Friday, a group of UNRWA employees in Lebanon denounced the punitive measures taken against two of the agency's employees in the country, one of whom was allegedly suspended without pay, while the other was deprived of his salary for a month, for reasons linked to their political involvement.
UNRWA confirmed the suspension of one of the employees, specifying that it would last "for the duration of the investigation."
The employees' statement said that the staff member had been suspended for three months and deprived of his salary "because of his political affiliation."
The agency also denied that another employee had been deprived of his salary.
On Friday, UNRWA employees denounced the measures as "unfair, absurd and immoral."
"We call on the agency to immediately reverse these decisions, which punish employees on the basis of their patriotic and humanitarian stances," the employees' statement said, warning against "popular escalation."
On Saturday, the US Congress adopted a text banning all direct funding from the United States for UNRWA, which has been at the heart of a controversy since Israel in January accused 12 of its 13,000 or so employees in Gaza of involvement in the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7. This ban will remain in place for one year, until March 2025.
The UN dismissed the 12 staff members accused by Israel, while several countries suspended their funding to UNRWA after the Israeli accusations. Since then, some of these countries have resumed funding the UN body.
Humanitarian assistance for almost 250,000 people
In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees have denounced the catastrophic consequences of the funding freeze for UNRWA, whose budget for 2023 was close to $1.6 billion, according to its website.
Since their arrival in Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1948 war, Palestinian refugees have depended for the most part on humanitarian aid from the agency, which since 1949 has been responsible for providing humanitarian assistance to some 250,000 displaced Palestinians in Lebanon.
UNRWA, which operates in the country's 12 Palestinian camps, caters for 39,982 pupils in its 64 schools in Lebanon, according to its website. It also provides more than 524,000 medical consultations a year in its 27 primary health centers. In addition, 61,076 people benefit from cash transfers granted to the most disadvantaged, to the tune of $50 per person every three months.
Between Jan. 1 January and June 30, 2023, Palestinians in Lebanon benefited from more than $28 million in aid, including financial allowances, access to education and hospital care, and maintenance work in the camps.