A meeting of the U.N. Security Council in 2019. (Illustrative photo: Manuel Elias/U.N./AFP)
Upon the instruction of the caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdallah Bou Habib, and in coordination with the caretaker Minister of Education and Higher Education, Abbas Halabi, the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations in New York filed a second complaint with the U.N. Security Council in New York regarding the effects of the Israeli aggression and its repercussions on the education sector in Lebanon.
Lebanon included in this complaint data and figures on the number of displaced students and teachers in the public and private sectors, at all levels and categories of education. It also detailed the number of schools, universities and educational buildings that were removed from their primary function to be transformed into reception centers for displaced persons in various regions of Lebanon.
In its complaint, Lebanon urged Security Council member states to intervene "urgently and effectively to end the ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanese territory," which has deprived nearly 1.4 million students of schooling, threatening "their fundamental right to education, the academic level and the future of entire generations of students" and having a "negative impact on their psychological state," said the statement released Monday by the Grand Serail.
Before these last two complaints filed since mid-September and the start of the Israeli escalation, the permanent mission of Lebanon to the U.N. had filed six others, notably against Israeli attacks targeting the agricultural sector in southern Lebanon, its cyberattacks and its violations of its airspace, since the start of the war between Hezbollah and Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.