Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, where narrow concrete alleyways wind between cramped apartment blocks south of Beirut, has been home to generations of Palestinian families since 1948. Now, this lifeline is fraying.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides essential services to approximately 225,000 Palestinians across Lebanon, is managing its operations "month by month" as funding uncertainties threaten the agency's survival, according to Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA's director in Lebanon.
The agency operates on an annual budget of just US$110 million for its Lebanon operations—roughly $490 per person annually, a fraction of Lebanon's already-struggling GDP per capita of $3,500. In this region, today's headline is yesterday's history repeating.
"I cannot afford market medicines," said Wafaa El Hajj, 55, who works in a kindergarten at Burj al-Barajneh. Her sister died from an untreated illness because the family lacked the financial resources for proper medical care—a stark illustration of how UNRWA's funding crisis translates directly into life-and-death consequences.
The agency's financial collapse accelerated after October 7, 2023, when Switzerland and other donors suspended payments following Israeli allegations that UNRWA staff participated in Hamas attacks on Israel. Switzerland has since redirected its support through alternative organizations working in Palestinian territories, leaving a critical gap in Lebanon.
For Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, UNRWA isn't merely a service provider—it's the only institutional support in a country where they face systematic exclusion. According to reporting from SWI swissinfo.ch, Palestinians in Lebanon are barred from healthcare systems, public sector employment, business registration, property ownership, and 38 professions. Poverty rates among the community hover between 70-80%.
Sabah Habib, a Syrian-Palestinian displaced since 2021, depends on UNRWA programs for her disabled child. Her husband, injured and unable to work, cannot access the formal economy. Reem Samrawi, university-educated and multilingual, faced severe employment discrimination after graduation, finding only a two-month position with UNRWA itself.
The crisis reached a new inflection point on January 20, 2026, when Israel demolished UNRWA's headquarters in East Jerusalem—an action the UN Secretary-General condemned as violating international law. Switzerland expressed "serious concern," noting the demolition breached UN privileges conventions.
This didn't start yesterday. UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide relief to Palestinians displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Nearly eight decades later, the temporary agency still serves more than 5.9 million registered refugees across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza.
In Lebanon, where Palestinians have never been integrated into society—partly due to the country's delicate sectarian balance and fears that permanent settlement would undermine Palestinian claims to return—UNRWA operates 68 schools, 27 primary health centers, and provides emergency assistance to the most vulnerable.
The funding drought means El Hajj and her neighbors face impossible choices: medicine or food, school supplies or rent. For Habib's disabled child, reduced programming could mean developmental setbacks with lifelong consequences.
As regional donors recalibrate their aid strategies and political pressures mount from multiple directions, the Palestinians of Burj al-Barajneh find themselves caught in a geopolitical vise—stateless, rightless, and increasingly abandoned by the international community that created UNRWA to address their displacement.
The question facing donors is not merely budgetary. It's whether the humanitarian imperative to support a vulnerable population can survive the political pressures that have made Palestinian refugees a permanent crisis with no permanent solution in sight.
