LEBANON From Sabra and Shatila to the Syrians, the ‘endless’ drama of the refugees in Lebanon

Forty years after the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp, the emergency has not yet been resolved. It has even been aggravated by the war in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of children are deprived of the right to education. International aid is conditional on their permanence in the country of cedars, which sees the fragile ethnic and confessional balance compromised.

Beirut () – Every year around this time, the international press feels compelled to recall one of the most cowardly and shameful episodes of the Lebanese war, that of the Sabra and Shatila massacre (September 16-18, 1982), during the Israeli invasion. Arriving in Beirut as part of the “Peace in Galilee” operation, Ariel Sharon’s army, after expelling the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under international supervision, surrounded the two camps. Simultaneously, groups of militiamen – mostly Christians – penetrated and eliminated the men of value who were still inside, and then turned against the civilian population. Between 800 and 2,000 people lost their lives in the massacre. Two days earlier, another massacre took place in Achrafieh, in the heart of Christian Beirut, killing 33 people, including Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel, who had just been re-elected three weeks earlier.

Far from trying to justify one massacre with another, this tragedy underscores the atrocity of a war that has been going on since 1975 to free Lebanon from the burden of refugees, who were expelled from their land after the partition of Palestine (UN Resolution 181). , November 29, 1947) and that history had transformed into the town of Fedayyin. A people that a wave of political madness made believe that Lebanon could serve as a substitute for Palestine, or as a springboard to recover the lost homeland.

The siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army and the mediation of the American emissary Philip Habib put an end to the presence of Yasser Arafat and the PLO in the Lebanese capital. The Palestinian people, who arrived in waves after 1949, became “refugees” again. And it always remained so, at least in Lebanon. Burdened by this burden, and living in constant fear that Palestinians will be forced to naturalize, the Lebanese were forced to take in another influx of refugees 30 years later. This time Syrians, expelled from their country after a peaceful intifada that later degenerated into violence (2011).

Between 1947 and 2011, these two large population flows destabilized a tiny country of 10,452 km2. This seriously endangered its young independence (achieved in 1943), based on a delicate confessional balance between the Christian and Muslim population of the country.

Two tests that continue

These two great tests continue over time, both for the host country and for the host populations, and only a historical miracle can save Lebanon from the drama it is going through today. The Palestinians live in misery. They represent the largest stateless population in the world (between 200,000 and 400,000 people, according to uncertain and changing estimates); its members are deprived of civil rights, their access to employment is limited in a nation that is a few hundred kilometers from a homeland that has become inaccessible. A people of which a part is crowded into unhealthy camps, devoid of hope and in which, in an endless cycle, one refugee gives way to another. All this, in the face of a gradual exhaustion or arbitrary restrictions on international aid (UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, has been deprived of funds by President Donald Trump), to force Lebanon to naturalize them, sanctioning as a fait accompli the expulsion from their homeland.

More or less similar promises to be the fate of the Syrian civilian population, which began to arrive in Lebanon from 2011. It is estimated that there are between one million and one and a half million people. A part of this population has begun to be repatriated at the initiative of the Lebanese authorities. However, most appear to be on the path to naturalization, despite government efforts to prevent it. However weakened and corrupt it may be, the Executive rejects this scenario and strives to encourage Syrians to return to their country knowing that Syria, in 2022, has largely regained its stability. However, it should be noted that the international financial community, led by the United States, remains hostile to repatriation policies. At the same time, he refuses to rebuild a war-torn country without first obtaining political and economic concessions from the regime. [de Damasco]. Which is not easy, especially considering the factor of the Russian presence in Syria.

In addition, there is something suspicious in the fact that the aid granted by international organizations is conditional on the presence of refugees in Lebanon. And above all, given that the aid would end up being suspended on the spot if these people returned to their homes and lands.

a lofty tone

This is the haughty tone with which an NGO, in this case Human Rights Watch (HRW), dictates what the Lebanese state should do, a nation where the currency has lost 95% of its value and where teachers don’t even have the minimum to eat decently and get around: “The Ministry of Education must announce, publicly and clearly, that children [sirios, ed] they can enroll in Lebanese schools despite not having a residence permit, birth certificate or other document issued by the Syrian state.” And in addition, they must explain that “they do not need a certificate of schooling, whether it is an official establishment and recognized as an institute or equivalent informal lessons. Many Syrian children are unable to obtain these documents, and they cannot be blamed for this.”

A 2021 UN study states that “Lebanon hosts 660,000 Syrian refugee children of school age [hay unos 40.000 nacimientos al año, ed]but 30% of them -that is, about 200,000 children- never attended school”. In addition, “almost 60% have not attended classes in recent years […] and at least 90% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon now live below the extreme poverty line, up from 55% in 2019.”

Faced with this emergency situation, Lebanon has tried by all means to communicate to the international community that the burden of the presence of Syrian refugees has become “unbearable”. And that the only option is “to do everything possible to repatriate them.”

In conclusion, we can say that the civil war unleashed in 1975 by the Palestinian presence was fueled by a misunderstanding and a lack of dialogue between the Lebanese, elements around which Damascus has cleverly maneuvered. However, today the Syrian presence in Lebanon is viewed with suspicion by many Lebanese, who see it as a simple operation to relocate a people, destined to change the Lebanese identity forever. Caught up in the global geopolitical turmoil, the country of cedars desperately tries to stay afloat.