SYRIA – ISRAEL – LEBANON Israeli bombs or return of Assad: the drama of Syrian refugees in Lebanon

For years fleeing their country of origin, today they are forced to return in the face of the war launched by the Jewish State against Hezbollah. In the last 48 hours almost 30,000 new displaced people. Beirut registers the crossing of the border “of 15,600 Syrian citizens and 16,130 Lebanese.” For those who return, a triple dilemma: detention, recruitment or loss of refugee status.

Damascus () – For years it was Syrians who fled the war-torn country, seeking refuge in neighboring Lebanon. Today we are witnessing the opposite phenomenon: thousands of Lebanese (and Syrians) try to cross the borders, choosing, as the lesser evil, the Arab nation still unstable after more than a decade of bloody conflict that has not shaken the power of President Bashar al-Assad. , before the country of cedar that for days has been under Israeli bombs. A desperate exodus due to the raids of fighters with the Star of David that have already caused more than 700 deaths and thousands of wounded, among them women and children; a true “emergency” that has been going on for days, according to NGOs and international movements, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has already reinforced its assistance programs for displaced people.

According to the Lebanese authorities (a nation that hosts nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees, plus 11 thousand from other nations), almost 30 thousand displaced people have been registered in the last 48 hours alone, but many others are hastily leaving their homes. “This bloodshed is taking a terrible toll, driving tens of thousands of people from their homes,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. «This is yet another ordeal for the families who have fled the war in Syria and who are now being bombed in the country where they sought refuge. We must avoid,” he hopes, “a repetition of these scenes of despair and devastation,” among other things because “the Middle East cannot afford another refugee crisis.”

Hundreds of vehicles queue at the Syrian border. Many people also arrive on foot, carrying what they can. Crowds, including women, small children and babies, wait in line after spending the night outdoors as temperatures begin to drop. Some are carrying fresh wounds from the shelling, and are calling on UNHCR workers on the ground and at border crossings, along with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, to provide them with food, water, blankets and mattresses. The humanitarian situation in Syria,” explains the UNHCR note, “remains desperate,” among other things because “the 2023 earthquake and the prolonged conflict have left critical infrastructure in tatters and millions of people in need of help.”

The Lebanese authorities stated yesterday that they had “registered the crossing of 15,600 Syrian citizens and 16,130 Lebanese into Syrian territory.” Damascus security sources contacted by Afp added that this week more than 22,000 people, including more than 7,000 Lebanese, crossed the border between the two countries using the only two available crossings. In an interview given on September 25 to The National newspaper, the Lebanese Minister of Economy, Amin Salam, declared that all families fleeing the Israeli bombings, whether Lebanese or Syrian, have the right to receive help, but that “there is priority to the Lebanese.

After all, the situation of Syrians in Lebanon remains a very sensitive issue, especially since 2019, when the cedar country plunged into what the World Bank described as one of the worst economic crises in centuries. Queues of buses and cars stretched several kilometers from the Syrian border as of September 23, and some families undertook a long journey on foot. Once in Syria (where five soldiers were killed today in an Israeli attack), people waited a few more hours to be searched by overwhelmed border officials, while aid workers tirelessly distributed food, water, mattresses and blankets. Some are returning refugees, like Emad al-Salim, who had fled Aleppo in 2014. He was living in the southern coastal city of Tire when the bombing began; He gathered his wife and six children and fled again. “When we were leaving there were destroyed houses in front of me,” he told the Associated Press. “It took us three days to get here.”

Nada Hamid al-Lajji returned to her family after seven years in Lebanon with her husband. They are originally from eastern Syria, but they still don’t know where to relocate, because “I don’t even have a house anymore.” Many Lebanese families are also fleeing: Mahmoud Ahmad Tawbeh, from the southern town of Arnoun, wants to stay with his extended family of 35 in a rented house in a Damascus suburb. “We got out with difficulty, many bombs fell on our heads, the town’s houses were destroyed and several neighbors died.”

For many Lebanese, especially those living in the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country, Syria appears to be the quickest route to safety. In addition to those who fled the war, many Syrians had previously arrived in Lebanon for work or family reasons and regularly cross the border. Added to them are those who arrived as refugees and are reluctant at the prospect of returning to their homeland, for fear of being detained for accusations or suspicions of links with the opposition to Assad, for fear of being forcibly recruited into the army. or lose their refugee status.