Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are struggling with rising electricity bills and inflation as restrictions on employment narrow their options for earning a living, Al Jazeera reported on November 1, 2026.
For Osama Najjar, a resident of Beddawi refugee camp in Tripoli, the financial strain has already cost him his aluminium shop. He closed the business in early 2024 after sales weakened and bills became unaffordable. Finding work since then has been difficult, he told the outlet.
Lebanon has yet to recover from the economic and banking crisis that began in 2019. State electricity supplies last only a few hours daily, forcing most residents to turn to private generators or other providers. Al Jazeera cited a World Bank forecast that inflation could reach 17.5 percent in 2026.
Those pressures compound longstanding barriers. Palestinians are excluded from professions including medicine, law, engineering and pharmacy. Palestinian-Lebanese researcher and podcaster Elia Ayoub told Al Jazeera that Palestinians can train for many professions they are then unable to practise in Lebanon.
Successive measures have sought to ease employment restrictions, including a February 2026 mechanism allowing Palestinian nursing students to apply for employment sponsorship. But experts cited by Al Jazeera said the changes have not removed structural exclusion from the labour market.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, estimated that about 222,000 Palestinians lived in Lebanon in February 2025. Many seek its assistance, but the agency reported in September 2026 that it expected a deficit of at least $200 million between the end of 2026 and the start of 2027.
The hardship is also fuelling concern about dangerous sea journeys to Europe. Najjar described conversations in the camps about travelling by boat to Turkiye and onward to Greece. A vessel that left Lebanon in 2022 sank off Syria, killing at least 86 people, many of them Palestinians from the camps.