The governance of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon is entering a consultative phase, not a final and already applied division of powers. On 30 October, in the Greater Serail, Nawaf Salam launched discussions on a national project prepared by the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee. The government intends to better articulate State authority, services and Palestinian participation. Official declarations identify the principles of the project. They are not enough to assign every service to an administration today or to announce a transfer of responsibilities to the municipalities.
Camp governance remains a discussed project
The Chair of the Dialogue Committee, Ramez Dimashkié, describes an approach aimed at overcoming separate responses to crises. The consultations should allow for a review of the draft before it is forwarded to the Head of Government and thereafter to the Council of Ministers. Implementation mechanisms remain open to discussion. This sequence is important: the public launch of a project does not constitute the adoption of its final version.
The project includes security, justice, administration, services and local participation. These dimensions are linked, but they do not all belong to the same institutions. Arresting a person suspected of an offence, treating a water leak and examining an application for social law are three different acts. Grouping them under the term governance should not erase the rules and responsibilities of each.
State retains responsibility for security
The constitutional framework does not make camps outside Lebanon. Article 1 affirms the unity and sovereignty of the State. Article 65 places the armed forces under the authority of the Council of Ministers. Government statements put the camp site in line. They do not create new sovereignty over spaces that have previously been legally removed from the country.
The practical question is the regular presence of the institutions and how their interventions are organised. The principle of sovereignty does not in itself indicate which administration will receive a complaint, which will follow up on a decision or how the services will be coordinated. Sustainable application requires identifiable procedures. Without them, the power of principle can coexist with referrals of responsibility that leave the inhabitants without interlocutor.
Nor does the security component allow us to deduce the content of social reforms. The Chairman of the Dialogue Committee explicitly refused to present the rights as the prize for an arms surrender. The work on the legal status of refugees is a separate piece of legislation. It must therefore be followed through the proposed texts and their course, rather than as an advantage that would automatically be granted to the outcome of a security operation.
UNRWA provides services, not police
The UN agency itself recalls that it does not administer the camps and does not maintain law and order. It does not have a police or intelligence service. Its activities include education, care, social assistance, infrastructure and emergency assistance. Consolidating the provision of services and the exercise of a territorial authority therefore leads to an incorrect description of its mandate.
This role has material translations. In its July 2026 emergency report on Lebanon, UNRWA reported that, as at 14 July, waste collection and water pumping were continuing in the twelve Palestinian refugee camps. This is a dated balance sheet, not a guarantee on the status of each facility in November. It nevertheless shows why the organisation of services cannot be examined without the agency, its teams, its resources and its partners.
The Salam speech of 30 October states that the strengthening of the State presence must be linked to the continuation of UNRWA missions, without Lebanon replacing it. It also maintains international responsibility for its financing. It therefore does not announce the disappearance of the Agency or the complete resumption of its services by the Lebanese administration. Such a conclusion would be contrary to the terms presented at the launch.
Municipalities cannot be simply a financial remedy
Municipalities are invited to participate in consultations with national institutions, camp representatives and civilian actors. Their presence in the discussion is understood by the continuity of urban networks and spaces: waste, sanitation or traffic do not necessarily stop at an administrative limit. This does not mean that a new burden sharing has already been established.
For each service, the final arrangement should distinguish between the one who decides, the one who carries out the work and the one who finances them. A municipality could be involved in coordination without becoming the sole operator. An international organization could contribute to equipment without taking over maintenance for an unlimited period. These possibilities illustrate the choices to be made; they do not constitute the measures adopted in the draft.
Funding is therefore inseparable from skills. A transfer of obligation without resources does not guarantee an additional service. The cost of operation, maintenance and replacement of equipment should be considered with the initial costs. It will also be necessary to know how partners’ commitments will be followed up and what responses will be expected if funding breaks down.
Palestinian participation must be identifiable
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in a statement of 30 October, defended an approach that went beyond administrative and security aspects alone. It calls for genuine Palestinian participation and for social, legal and national dimensions to be taken into account. This is the position of an organization, not a mandate expressed by all refugees or an agreement already reached with all Palestinian components.
This request raises a concrete question for consultations: how to represent people whose situations differ? Political organizations, local committees, associations and users of services do not necessarily speak with the same priorities. Documented participation should identify the stakeholders consulted, comments received and changes made. The holding of a meeting alone is not sufficient to demonstrate adherence to all provisions.
Refugees living outside the camps also raise a question of perimeter. A measure that organizes a network or intervention in a camp does not automatically regulate a person’s rights to work or to social protection. The territorial framework of the project and the personal scope of future legislation must remain distinct. This clarification avoids presenting local service reform as a general settlement of the status of Palestinians in Lebanon.
Documents to judge the follow-up
The formal sources establish the initiation of consultations and several directions. They do not provide, in the minutes reviewed, an exhaustive allocation of powers, a full budget or a binding timetable for each camp. To say today that a particular municipality would resume a specific service would therefore be premature. Similarly, the reference to the coming months is not enough to set an identical deadline for all stages.
The publication of the detailed project, the contributions and the version forwarded to the government will measure the choices chosen. The decisions will then have to specify the persons responsible, the means and the mechanisms of appeal of the inhabitants. It is this chain of documents and acts, more than the only title of governance, that will tell what is changing in the camps and for their neighbours.
Comments