BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister escalated his row with the UN refugee agency UNHCR on Wednesday, accusing it at a news conference of working to stop refugees from returning to Syria.
UNHCR has denied the accusation, saying it supports the return of refugees when it is safe for them to go back to Syria and helps those who choose to return with their documentation.
“Their policy is to forbid the return,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said. “The Lebanese policy is to encourage the return. Forbid, encourage. Stop, facilitate. That’s it,” Bassil said during the news conference in the town of Arsal, where he spoke alongside Syrian refugees.
“UNHCR does not forbid refugees from returning,” Rula Amin, UNHCR’s MENA region spokesperson sad in emailed comments to Reuters. “UNHCR’s policy is clear on this matter: we respect people’s free choices to return.”
“UNHCR is not the obstacle to the return, the obstacles lay elsewhere and in the complex situation on the ground,” Amin said, adding that the UNHCR recognizes the challenges Lebanon faces in hosting Syrian refugees.
The UN has registered about a million refugees in Lebanon — nearly a quarter of Lebanon’s population. The Lebanese government, which puts the figure at 1.5 million, says it wants them to start going back to territory where fighting is over.
Bassil said on Wednesday the burden of hosting Syrian refugees seven years into the conflict that drove them to flee had grown “unbearable,” blaming the crisis for the collapse of the economy and emigration of Lebanese citizens.
Last week, Bassil ordered a freeze on applications by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for residency permits for its staff, saying it was intimidating refugees into staying in Lebanon.
Some 19 UNHCR staff members are affected by the Lebanese residency permit freeze, UNHCR Lebanon representative, Mireille Girard, told Reuters on Tuesday, and the agency’s spokesman in Geneva said it hopes the decision will be reversed.
Bassil accuses UNHCR of discouraging refugees from going home by asking them questions about potential difficulties they face upon return, including possible military conscription, damage to housing and lack of UN support in parts of Syria.
“I don’t want to have disputes with them, but it’s time to tell them enough,” he said.
The UNHCR favors the return of all refugees when it is safe for them to go home and speaks to refugees in all countries when they are preparing to return home to make sure it can give them enough support and protection, Girard said.
Another senior UN official, the deputy special coordinator for Lebanon Philippe Lazzarini, was quoted late on Tuesday as saying it would be “inconceivable” for the body to oppose refugees who wanted to go home.
“We respect refugees’ individual decision to return home and would never, never discourage the return from taking place based on their decision,” Prime Minister designate Saad Al-Hariri’s office quoted Lazzarini as saying during a meeting.
Lebanon’s government is operating on a caretaker basis because Hariri has not yet formed a new cabinet after parliamentary elections on May 6.
Lebanon foreign minister escalates refugee row with UN agency
Lebanon foreign minister escalates refugee row with UN agency
- Lebanon accuses the UNHCR of working to stop refugees from returning to Syria
- UNHCR says supports the return of refugees when it is safe
Israel agrees to reopen Rafah crossing only for Gaza pedestrians
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as part of its “limited reopening” once it has recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory.
Visiting US envoys had reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing during talks in Jerusalem over the weekend.
World leaders and aid agencies have repeatedly pushed for more humanitarian convoys to be able to access Gaza, which has been left devastated by more than two years of war and depends on the inflow of essential medical equipment, food and other supplies.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel had agreed to a reopening “for pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism.”
The move would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” it said on X.
It remained unclear whether the reopening would allow medical patients to leave Gaza for treatment in Egypt or other countries.
The Israeli military said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” said Netanyahu’s office.
The announcement came after Gaza’s newly appointed administrator, Ali Shaath, said the crossing would open “in both directions” this week.
“For Palestinians in Gaza, Rafah is more than a gate, it is a lifeline and a symbol of opportunity,” Shaath said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
Israeli media had also reported that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had urged Netanyahu to reopen Rafah during their Jerusalem talks.
Before the war erupted in October 2023, Rafah had been the only gateway connecting Gazans to the outside world and enabling international humanitarian aid to enter the territory, home to 2.2 million people living under Israeli blockade.
Last hostage
A spokesman for Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said on Sunday that the group had “provided mediators with all the details and information in our possession regarding the location of the captive’s body,” referring to Gvili.
Obeida added that “the enemy (Israel) is currently searching one of the sites based on information transmitted by the Al-Qassam Brigades.”
Except for Gvili, all of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have since been returned, whether living or dead.
A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police’s elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action on the day of the attack and his body was taken to Gaza.
The first phase of the US-backed ceasefire deal had stipulated that Hamas hand over all the hostages in Gaza.
Gvili’s family has expressed strong opposition to launching the second phase of the plan, which includes reopening Rafah, before they have received his remains.
“First and foremost, Ran must be brought home,” his family said in a statement on Sunday.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The Israeli retaliation flattened much of Gaza, a territory that was already suffering severely from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.
The two-year war between Israel and Hamas has left at least 71,657 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, figures considered reliable by the United Nations.
