UNRWA in Lebanon removes Palestine from a geography textbook, claiming to promote “critical thinking”

The content of a sixth-grade geography textbook used in UNRWA schools in Lebanon was discovered late, despite teaching having started in October 2025.

In this controversial textbook, UNRWA removed the national dimension of the Palestinian cause by deleting the name Palestine and replacing it with the terms the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon see the move as a deliberate national crime rather than an administrative mistake.

Questions are also being raised about the role of the Lebanese Ministry of Education, which is responsible for approving school textbooks used in the country.

So far, Lebanese officials have not reacted, despite hundreds of pupils in UNRWA schools burning all copies of the textbook in their schools in full view of the media.

UNRWA is required to teach the curriculum of the host country. The geography textbook at the centre of the dispute is not used in Syria, for example, where Palestinian pupils study the same curriculum as Syrian students.

Political groups, popular committees and parents of Palestinian pupils in Lebanon say there will be no compromise. The book has been burned, and they are demanding that UNRWA officially and publicly withdraw it, along with a written apology to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. They say removing the name of their occupied homeland amounts to denying their right of return, a right recognised by the United Nations.

Hamas’ Popular Action Department in Lebanon also condemned the issue, accusing UNRWA of participating in a systematic effort to erase Palestine and symbols associated with Palestinian dispossession, according to the New Arab web-site.

The Palestinian embassy in Lebanon responded by saying UNRWA adheres to host country curricula and that the disputed content was not part of official textbooks, but rather supplementary material intended to support critical thinking and map-reading skills, web-site added.