Foreign workers trapped and terrified in Lebanon’s conflict

The International Organization for Migration says Lebanon hosts more than 177,000 migrant workers, primarily from Africa and Asia. (Department of Migrant Workers File Photo)
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Updated 18 October 2024
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Foreign workers trapped and terrified in Lebanon’s conflict

  • “I feel that the end is near for me — worse than when I had cancer,” said Brinces, 46,
  • Nazmul Shahin, who works at a supermarket in Beirut’s Achrafieh neighborhood, says explosions jolt him awake at night

MANILA/LAGOS/DHAKA: Cici Brinces came to Lebanon as a domestic worker 14 years ago, married a Palestinian, had a son, survived leukaemia and was building a new life. Then bombs began falling in Beirut and now she wants to go home to the Philippines.
“I feel that the end is near for me — worse than when I had cancer,” said Brinces, 46, who fled her home near the airport two weeks ago and lived on the streets for days before moving into a shelter with her 10-year-old son.
Nazmul Shahin, who works at a supermarket in Beirut’s Achrafieh neighborhood, says explosions jolt him awake at night.
“My heart begins pounding — and it feels like something is gnawing at my entrails,” the 30-year-old Bangladeshi citizen, who has been living in Lebanon for about a year, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Beirut.
Md Al Mamun loves the job he got at a Beirut bakery three months ago, but now he too wants to go home to Bangladesh.
“I really like it here — the pay and the environment are so much better — but since the bombing began, I have been badly missing home,” he said.
A nearly year-long conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group has intensified in recent weeks, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, killing many of Hezbollah’s top leaders, and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel.
Lebanese authorities say at least 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and more than 2,300 people killed since last October, the majority in recent weeks.
Most of the country’s 900 shelters are full and people are now sleeping in the open or in Beirut’s parks.
Among them are many foreign workers.
The International Organization for Migration says Lebanon hosts more than 177,000 migrant workers, primarily from Africa and Asia. Human Rights Watch has quoted Lebanon’s Labour Ministry as saying the number is around 250,000.
They mostly comprise women who work in the domestic and hospitality sectors and are employed under the kafala system, a sponsorship model also common in Gulf nations where employers control the legal status of any migrants who work for them.
Uganda-based activist Safina Virani, who is fundraising online to get food and shelter to African migrants, said many women had been cut adrift by their employers, who fled when the Israeli attacks began.
“Many said their employers took their passports at the airport as soon as they arrived, and they didn’t give (them) to them again. They have no money, and their employers abandoned them as soon as the war broke, and they didn’t give them their documents,” Virani told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Uganda’s capital Kampala.
“Most of them don’t have bank accounts or documents that can identify them officially,” Virani said, explaining that this made it difficult for relatives back home to send money.
Virani said stranded Africans also faced discrimination.
“African migrants are being treated as second-class citizens, and this has a lot to do with racism, and that is why governments need to take the protection of the citizens seriously,” she said.

’PLEASE SEND AIRPLANES’
There are more than 11,000 documented Filipino workers in Lebanon. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the government to prepare for a safe and timely repatriation of its citizens.
This is exactly what Brinces, whose husband is working in Nigeria, wants.
“President Marcos, please send airplanes here for us, like what other nationalities did for their countrymen,” she said.
Some 500 Filipinos have been repatriated since last year and by Oct. 8, the Philippines embassy in Beirut had received more than 1,700 applications for repatriation.
The embassy has set up temporary shelters for Filipino workers, but Brinces said many people were reluctant to use them as cellphones were at times restricted so they could lose contact with home.
Some Filipinos say the embassy has been slow to help.
“My sister only got repetitive replies from government chatbots, until they asked her to go to the embassy in Beirut which was impossible for her because her employer won’t allow her to and she did not have her passport,” said Mark Anthony Bunda, whose sister works in Lebanon as a domestic helper.
Brinces’ situation is different: she has her documents but her passport has expired and she needs exit clearance from the Lebanese authorities as a foreign worker.
When she first fled her home, she sent her son to live with her mother-in-law in the relative safety of the mountains outside Beirut. She wanted to stay close to the embassy in case there was news of repatriation.
“The embassy told me they can’t respond to our requests all at once. Especially since the government here has been slow to process our applications,” she said.
She has now been reunited with her son and is living in a shelter in the capital.

FRAUDSTERS AND DONATIONS
Among many African workers in Lebanon, there are some 26,000 Kenyans, according to foreign ministry data, many a direct result of an agreement between Kenya’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Lebanese companies.
The Kenyan government told Kenyans to register with the embassy in Kuwait for free evacuation and has allocated 100 million Kenyan shillings ($778,210) for the evacuation.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said almost 1,500 people had already registered.
The government has also warned people to be aware of fraudsters offering fake evacuations for exorbitant fees.
“We would like to alert all Kenyans currently in Lebanon about reports of fraudsters exploiting vulnerable individuals. These individuals are unlawfully charging fees for evacuation services,” the ministry of foreign and diaspora affairs said in a statement.
About 150,000 Bangladeshis are also in Lebanon, working in petrol stations, supermarkets, garages and as cleaners. Bangladeshis typically pay about 500,000 taka ($4,200) to migration brokers to get a job in Lebanon.
Officials at Bangladesh’s embassy in Beirut are providing medical care and advice and have started collecting information on those who want to return home.
Md Touhid Hossain, foreign adviser for the interim government in Dhaka, said Bangladesh had asked the IOM to arrange a chartered flight to evacuate Bangladeshis.
Siddikor Rahman, who has worked as a supervisor in a Lebanese factory for about 10 years, said many Bangladeshis have lost their jobs and homes since the airstrikes and are surviving in shelters provided by the community and the embassy.
“Those of us who can afford to lend a hand are supporting our compatriots — either giving them cash, buying food for them, or providing them shelter,” said Shahin.
“But my heart is sinking day by day and the only thing I hope for is to go home,” he said.

NO EASY DECISION
Virani has been working with Lebanese activist Dea Hage-Chahine to reach vulnerable female migrant workers.
Hage-Chahine told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Beirut that she had secured a private building for a few months to house 147 Sierra Leonean women and three babies who had been sleeping outside their embassy in Beirut.
Working with a team of just four, she has also rented five apartments for another group of 58 Africans, mostly Sierra Leoneans, and liaised with their government to obtain the paperwork they need to get home.
“Migrant communities in Lebanon are marginalized and ignored, and you can imagine what is happening while we are going through a war and a huge humanitarian crisis; we need support,” she said.
“We’re working on the paperwork for the women, but we’re worried that we won’t be able to secure flights. We’re hoping the government will send a plane,” she said.
Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba told local media that because the government doesn’t have a trade employment deal with Lebanon, it has been difficult for them to quickly evacuate the workers.
However, the administration is working with IOM and leaders of the Sierra Leonean community in Lebanon to congregate citizens in a safe place while they process their repatriation.
Leaving Lebanon is not an easy choice for everyone.
In South Lebanon, Filipino domestic helper Ritchel Bagsican said she could not sleep because of the airstrikes and drones.
But the 32-year-old, who has been in Lebanon for nine years and has applied for repatriation, is torn about going home.
“Despite the economic crisis and the war here in Lebanon, job opportunities here are still better than in the Philippines. Work is not guaranteed there, so we might have to work abroad again,” she said.


WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals

Updated 06 June 2025
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WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals

  • The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies”

GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Thursday called for the “urgent protection” of two of the last hospitals remaining in the Gaza Strip, warning that the territory’s health system is “collapsing.”
The WHO said the Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital risk becoming “non-functional” because of restrictions on aid and access routes, further damaging a health system already battered by months of war.
“There are already no hospitals functioning in the north of Gaza. Nasser and Amal are the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, where currently most of the population is living,” the UN agency said in a statement on X.
“Without them, people will lose access to critical health services,” it said.
The WHO added that closure of the two hospitals would eliminate 490 beds and reduce Gaza’s hospital capacity to less than 1,400 beds — 40 percent below pre-war levels — for a population of two million people.
The WHO said the hospitals have not been told to evacuate but lie within or just outside an Israeli-declared evacuation zone announced on June 2.
Israeli authorities have told Gaza’s health ministry that access routes to the two hospitals will be blocked, the WHO said.
As a result, it will be “difficult, if not impossible” for medical staff and new patients to reach them, it said.
“If the situation further deteriorates, both hospitals are at high risk of becoming non-functional, due to movement restrictions, insecurity, and the inability of WHO and partners to resupply or transfer patients,” the organization said.
The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies.”
It warned the closure of Nasser and Al-Amal would have dire consequences for patients in need of surgical care, intensive care, blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis.
After nearly 20 months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza is mired in one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with civilians enduring relentless bombardment, mass displacement and severe hunger.
 

 


Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm 

Palestinian boys carry pots as the queue at a hot meal distribution point in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, June 4, 2025.
Updated 06 June 2025
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Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm 

  • Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation
  • SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed

WASHINGTON: A Chicago-based private equity firm - controlled by a member of the family that founded American publishing company Rand McNally - has an "economic interest" in the logistics company involved in a controversial new aid distribution operation in Gaza.
McNally Capital, founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, helped "support the establishment" of Safe Reach Solutions, a McNally Capital spokesperson told Reuters. SRS is a for-profit company established in Wyoming in November, state incorporation records show. It is in the spotlight for its involvement with the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which last week started distributing aid in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The foundation paused work on Wednesday after a series of deadly shootings close to its operations and has suffered from the departure of senior personnel.

HIGHLIGHTS

• McNally Capital has economic interest in Safe Reach Solutions

• GHF aid distribution halted after deadly shootings near operations

• U.N. and aid groups refuse to work with GHF, citing lack of neutrality

"McNally Capital has provided administrative advice to SRS and worked in collaboration with multiple parties to enable SRS to carry out its mission," the spokesperson said. "While McNally Capital has an economic interest in SRS, the firm does not actively manage SRS or have a day-to-day operating role."
SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed. Reuters has not been able to establish who funds the newly created foundation.
The spokesperson did not provide details of the scale of the investment in SRS by McNally Capital, which says it has $380 million under management.
McNally Capital founder Ward McNally is the great great great grandson of the co-founder of Rand McNally. The McNally family sold the publishing company in 1997.
A spokesperson for SRS confirmed it worked with the foundation, also known as GHF, but did not answer specific questions about ownership.
GHF, which resumed aid distribution on Thursday, did not respond to a request for comment
While Israel and the United States have both said they don't finance the operation, they have pushed the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it, arguing that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation. This week GHF pressed Israel to boost civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its distribution sites after Gazan health officials said at least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near one of the food distribution sites on Tuesday, the third consecutive day of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation.
The Israeli military said its forces on Tuesday had opened fire on a group of people they viewed as a threat after they left a designated access route near the distribution center in Rafah. It said it was investigating what had happened.
The U.N and most other aid groups have refused to work with GHF because they say it is not neutral and that the distribution model militarizes aid and forces displacement.
The SRS spokesperson said in a statement that under Reilly's leadership, "SRS brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts in security, supply chain management, and humanitarian affairs."
McNally Capital has investments in defense contracting companies. Among the firms it acquired was Orbis Operations, a firm that specializes in hiring former CIA officers. Orbis did not return calls for comment. Reilly used to work for Orbis.

 


Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

Updated 06 June 2025
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Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

  • The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead

MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
 

 


Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

Updated 06 June 2025
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Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

  • An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”

NEW YORK: More than 130 news outlets and press freedom groups called Thursday for Israel to immediately lift a near-total ban on international media entering Gaza, while calling for greater protections for Palestinian journalists in the territory.
Israel has blocked most foreign correspondents from independently accessing Gaza since it began its war there following the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack by militant group Hamas.
An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”
Signees included AFP’s global news director Phil Chetwynd, The Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace, and the editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz Aluf Benn.
The letter added that many Palestinian journalists — whom news outlets have relied on to report from inside Gaza — face a litany of threats.
“Local journalists, those best positioned to tell the truth, face displacement and starvation,” it said.
“To date, nearly 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military. Many more have been injured and face constant threats to their lives for doing their jobs: bearing witness.
“This is a direct attack on press freedom and the right to information.”
The letter added that it was a “pivotal moment” in Israel’s war — with renewed military actions and efforts to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This, it said, makes it “vital that Israel open Gaza’s borders for international journalists to be able to report freely and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a separate statement that Israel must grant journalists access and allow them to work in Gaza “without fear for their lives.”
“When journalists are killed in such unprecedented numbers and independent international media is barred from entering, the world loses its ability to see clearly, to understand fully, and to respond effectively to what is happening,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders head Thibaut Bruttin said the media blockade on Gaza “is enabling the total destruction and erasure of the blockaded territory.”
“This is a methodical attempt to silence the facts, suppress the truth, and isolate the Palestinian press and population,” he said in a statement.
Thursday’s letter was issued the same day the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said three reporters were killed by a strike close to a hospital in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said the strike had targeted “an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was operating in a command and control center” in the yard of the hospital.


Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

Updated 06 June 2025
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Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has “activated” some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, though it was not immediately clear what role they would play.
His comments on social media were the first public acknowledgment of Israel’s backing of armed Palestinian groups within Gaza, based around powerful clans or extended families.
Such clans often wield some control in corners of Gaza, and some have had clashes or tensions with Hamas in the past. Palestinians and aid workers have accused clans of carrying out criminal attacks and stealing aid from trucks. Several clans have issued public statements rejecting cooperation with the Israelis or denouncing looting.
An Israeli official said that one group that Netanyahu was referring to was the so-called Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a local clan leader in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
In recent weeks, the Abu Shabab group announced online that its fighters were helping protect shipments to the new, Israeli-backed food distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Rafah area. But some Palestinians say the group has also been involved in attacking and looting aid convoys.
Netanyahu did not specify what support Israel was giving to the clans, or what specifically their role would be. His announcement came hours after a political opponent criticized him for arming unofficial groups of Palestinians in Gaza.
In a video posted to his X account, Netanyahu said the government made the move on the advice of “security officials,” in order to save lives of Israeli soldiers.
Though it was known in southern Gaza throughout the war, the Abu Shabab group emerged publicly the past month, posting pictures of its armed members, with helmets, flak jackets and automatic weapons. It declared itself a “nationalist force” protecting aid.
The Abu Shabab family renounced Yasser over his connections with the Israeli military in a recent statement, saying he and anyone who joined his group “are no longer linked” to the family.
The group’s media office said in response to emailed questions from the Associated Press that it operates in Israeli military-controlled areas for a “purely humanitarian” reason.
It described its ties with the Israel military as “humanitarian communication to facilitate the introduction of aid and ensure that it is not intercepted.”
“We are not proxies for anyone,” it said. “We have not received any military or logistical support from any foreign party.”
It said it has “secured the surroundings” of GHF centers in Rafah but was not involved in distribution of food.
It rejected accusations that the group had looted aid, calling them “exaggerations” and part of a “smear campaign.” But it also said, “our popular forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab only took the minimum amount of food and water necessary to secure their elements in the field,” without elaborating how, and from whom, they took the aid.
Abu Shabab and around 100 fighters have been active in eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, areas under Israeli military control, according to Nahed Sheheiber, head of the private transportation union in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups. He said they used to attack aid trucks driving on a military-designated route leading from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, the main entry point for aid.
“Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing,” Sheheiber said, referring to the Israeli military,
“The one who has looted aid is now the one who protects aid,” he said sarcastically.
An aid worker in Gaza said humanitarian groups tried last year to negotiate with Abu Shabab and other influential families to end their looting of convoys. Though they agreed, they soon reverted to hijacking trucks, the aid worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk the media.
The aid worker said he saw Abu Shabab’s men operating in Israeli-controlled areas near the military-held Morag Corridor in southern Gaza in late May. They were wearing new uniforms and carried what appeared to be new weapons, he said.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN humanitarian office OCHA for the occupied Palestinian territory, said Thursday that “criminal gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces near Kerem Shalom would systematically attack and loot aid convoys. .... These gangs have by far been the biggest cause of aid loss in Gaza.”
The war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-linked militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has decimated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has left the territory on the brink of famine.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them women and children. The ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages. Around a third are believed to be alive, though many fear they are in grave danger the longer the war goes on.