A general strike took place in the schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Lebanon on Saturday, March 2, amid demonstrations in the Rashidieh and Bus camps in the south of the country, in protest against the request of the agency’s administration, represented by its director in Lebanon, “Dorothy Klaus,” from the director of Deir Yassin School and the head of the Union Teachers at the agency, Fatah Al-Sharif, submitted his resignation against the backdrop of his national and humanitarian activities to support the people of the Gaza Strip who have been subjected to “Israeli” massacres by the “Israeli” occupation for 148 days.
More than 36,000 students refrained from going to school, while 64 schools affiliated with UNRWA closed their doors in all Lebanese regions, in response to the call of the General Union of Teachers to express protest against the agency’s management’s move, which during the past two days has met with a massive wave of popular, factional and institutional anger inside the camps. .
In Al-Bass camp, where Deir Yassin School is located, students and families carried Professor Fath Al-Sharif on their shoulders as an expression of their solidarity with him, after they went out in a march that reached in front of his house, during which they raised banners rejecting attacks on agency employees, condemning the threat to dismiss Professor Fath Al-Sharif or referring him for investigation, and demanding The UNRWA administration decided to retract its policies, which they described as reckless.
A source in the UNRWA Teachers’ Union in Lebanon (who preferred to remain anonymous) told local sources: The issue is not personal, but rather has a national dimension in the first place, and that no one will be allowed - referring to the agency’s management and donors - to blackmail us or put pressure on us. And to threaten us with our livelihood, because between belonging to the cause and the job, we will present the case for any job.
The source pointed out that Professor Fatah Al-Sharif and all the Palestinian teachers and refugees insist on preserving UNRWA at all costs, but they will not allow themselves to be blackmailed.
On February 26, the director of UNRWA in Lebanon, Dorothy Klaus, summoned the director of Deir Yassin High School, the head of the Palestinian Teachers Union in Lebanon, Fath al-Sharif, and a number of teachers. Al-Sharif and Klaus entered into a lengthy discussion about reports that reached the agency about… Carrying out national activities within the school.
Al-Sharif indicated that these activities were entitled the “Loaf of Bread” campaign, and they collected donations to feed a portion of the people of Gaza, and the donations reached the civilian beneficiaries, accompanied by videos and pictures proving this, and he told her: “This is a duty that cannot be abandoned, whatever the reasons.” Klaus asked Sharif to submit his resignation within a deadline ending on Saturday, March 2, or UNRWA would take a decision to dismiss him, but he refused to submit his resignation.
This request of the director of the agency aroused great indignation and anger among teachers, factions, and Palestinian refugees in general, especially in light of circumstances in which they see themselves as powerless in the face of the genocidal crimes being committed in the Gaza Strip, and “the least they can do is carry out donation campaigns and activities in support of the Palestinian people who He is being exterminated in the Gaza Strip.” The campaign began to respond to the agency by rejecting what they described as “blackmail.”
In the first statement issued by the Teachers Union, it was stated that the behavior of the agency’s management is “playing with fire and an existential war in which only the owners of the land and the cause will remain,” and that “neither the UNRWA agency nor any framework in this world, no matter how high its status, can blackmail us with our patriotism, our thought, and our belonging to our beloved land.”
This was also confirmed by Mr. Fatah Al-Sharif in front of the solidarity activists who arrived at his home in Al-Bass camp, where he said: He will not resign, nor will he change his positions or stop his activities in support of the afflicted Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and that no one will be able to dissuade the Palestinians from their national positions and affiliation.
He added: The job was never a goal. “The job will never humiliate us, and the job will not control us and force us to give up our rights, our dignity, and our pride. I have said it all the time and I repeat it, that our affiliation to Palestine, to our people, to Gaza, to the West Bank, and to all of Palestine is a religious affiliation and there is no going back from it.”
He called for a new campaign to relief the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, saying: “The blood of a Palestinian child is in the whole world.”
For his part, the source in the acting Teachers Union confirmed to our website that the next stage will witness a qualitative escalation with the UNRWA administration if it is stubborn in its decision towards Professor Fatah Al-Sharif, stressing “no complacency or complacency and that the escalation will continue until the end and until the demands of the Palestinian Teachers Union are met,” saying: “We will not accept anyone blackmailing us about our affiliation.”
In a speech on behalf of the civil committee during the march in Al-Bass camp, Mr. Khaled Baddawi called on the agency’s management in Lebanon to stop its behavior towards employees and try to alienate them from their cause under the pretext of restoring funding.
Meanwhile, student Hanadi Abu Sahyoun, on behalf of the school parliament at Deir Yassin High School, rejected what she described as the suspicious policies pursued by the UNRWA administration, calling on employees to express their national positions.
The director of UNRWA in Lebanon, Dorothy Klaus, justified her request for Al-Sharif to submit his resignation so that “funding from donor countries will not be cut off” at a time when the agency is facing “Israeli” plans to end its presence by halting funding announced by 17 countries based on “Israeli” allegations. That its employees participated in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on the seventh of last October.
This was preceded by multiple efforts to link the agency’s funding by donor countries to political conditions described by political and human rights institutions as “serving Israeli policies,” such as amending the curricula in its schools.
In the West Bank, it also prevented its Palestinian employees from expressing their national affiliation and expressing positions supportive of the resistance against the “Israeli” occupation, to which the agency’s management responded and sparked disapproval and denunciation from the Palestinians, especially the agency’s employees who saw the matter as “blatant blackmail of their livelihood and their jobs.”
While the Palestinian factions and civil and human rights organizations continue to call for funding the agency directly from the United Nations budget in order to avoid the policies of “blackmail and subjugation” to which they are subjected by donor countries, especially those allied with the “Israeli” occupation, in exchange for the survival of the agency, which is considered one of the most important evidence of the continuation of the issue. Palestinian refugees and one of the most important factors for their survival due to the services they provide.
