Syrians find refuge in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps

BEIRUT — Residents of Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in west Beirut, bustle down its narrow streets, dodging mopeds zooming past. Street vendors and shopkeepers hawk their wares as the smell of freshly baked manakeesh pastries rises in the thick summer heat. 

Thousands of those who live and work here—and other camps built by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon—are Syrian. Some have been in Shatila for decades, while others only arrived during the Syrian civil war. 

Syrian shopkeepers in Shatila, unlike many of their compatriots living outside the camps, have not seen their businesses forcibly shuttered in recent months. Lebanese authorities stay out, delegating local security to Palestinian factions.

As a result, Palestinian refugee camps have become a haven for Syrians. They come not only seeking lower rents—as low as $100 a month, while the average rent in Beirut is around $400—but also refuge from eviction, street violence and the threat of deportation.

“We’re refugees coming to refugees,” Rami, 25, who runs a corner store in Shatila, said. Originally from Syria’s central Homs city, he fled to Lebanon in 2013. He feels a greater sense of safety in the camp, which has no checkpoints. Like the vast majority of Syrians in the country he does not hold legal residency, making every interaction with Lebanese authorities a minefield. 

Syrians outnumber Palestinians

The grandson of Palestinians who fled Akka in 1948, Muhammad Hussein, 31, has spent his entire life in Burj al-Barajneh, a few kilometers south of Shatila. One warm morning in June, he sat back in a plastic chair with a gun laid over his knees, guarding the offices of Fatah—a political party affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which runs the camp.

“With each passing year, we’ve seen the number of Syrians in the camp increase,” he told Syria Direct.

Muhammad Hussein, 31, sits back in his chair guarding Fatah’s offices in Beirut’s Burj al-Barajneh camp, 13/6/2024 (Syria Direct/Natacha Danon)

Tens of thousands of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon have settled in the country’s 12 official Palestinian refugee camps, which were set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for Palestinians forced to flee their homes in 1948.

The most recent census of Burj al-Barajneh, conducted in 2017, found that nearly 8,000 Syrians lived in the camp alongside 9,000 Palestinians. Today, there could be as many as 15,000 Syrian inhabitants, Youssef Ghaban, the director of Fatah’s offices in the camp, told Syria Direct. 

In Shatila, nearly 60 percent of the camp’s 14,000 residents were Syrian in 2017. There, too, the number of Syrians is estimated to be even higher today, particularly after the onset of Lebanon’s economic crisis in 2019. 

“Palestinians rent out their homes to Syrians to live in better conditions outside of the camp,” Ghaban explained.

‘One people’

There is a natural solidarity between Syrians and Palestinians, members of both groups say. Both are refugee communities who have experienced discrimination and exclusion in Lebanon. 

“There haven’t been any problems between Palestinians and Syrians,” Safwan, 53, who is originally from the Idlib countryside village of Qumaynas, said. “If you respect others, they respect you.”

Safwan owns his apartment in Burj al-Barajneh, where he has lived and worked for 25 years. He used to regularly travel back and forth across the border, but brought his wife and four children to Lebanon after war broke out in Syria. Over time, he has become part of the community. “Everyone loves me here,” he said.

Safwan runs a vegetable shop at the entrance of the camp. “If I were outside the camp, they would have closed my shop, like they closed my friend’s,” he said. His residency permit expired three years ago and his shop is not formally registered with Lebanese authorities. In recent months, Lebanon has cracked down hard on illegal Syrian businesses.

“Palestinians and Syrians are one people,” Hussein, 55, who also runs a vegetable shop in Burj al-Barajneh, said. Originally from Idlib city, he has not experienced any discrimination from Palestinians, he added. He first came to Lebanon in 1993, well before the war in Syria. While he is now registered as a refugee with UNHCR, his residency in Lebanon has expired. He feels safer in the camp than outside it, where he could face identity checks and the threat of deportation. 

Abu Muhammad, 53, from Raqqa province, stands in his vegetable shop in Burj al-Barajneh where he sells seasonal produce, 13/6/2024 (Syria Direct/Natacha Danon)

Ramadan, 45, who is originally from Syria’s eastern Deir e-Zor, also feels safer inside Burj al-Barajneh, where he has lived for 15 years. He works as a mover, carrying around furniture and other heavy objects. While he and his eight children have valid residency since his wife is Lebanese, he does not dare leave the camp for safety reasons. 

“Outside the camp, Syrians are being beaten,” he explained, with conditions significantly worsening over the past year. “Palestinians are a kind people, life is nicer inside the camp.”

Palestinian views of Syrians

Palestinians in the camps expressed a similar sense of solidarity with Syrians. “The Syrian people stood with Palestinians and the Syrian regime repressed Palestinians too,” Fatah office director Ghaban said. However, he stressed there are differences between the two communities.“They think our situation is the same but we can’t go back to our country,” which remains under Israeli occupation, he explained. 

While it is physically possible for Syrians in Lebanon to return, unlike their Palestinian neighbors, for many doing so means running the risk of arrest, torture or conscription. For others it means returning to degraded living conditions and a lack of livelihoods.

“Generally, there is acceptance, especially of Syrian Palestinians,” more so than outside the camps, Ahmed, a Palestinian with Lebanese citizenship who works for a peacebuilding organization in southern Lebanon’s Burj al-Shemali camp, said. While Palestinians remain the majority in Burj al-Shemali, Syrians and Syrian-Palestinians represent around a third of its population, he added. In 2017, a total of 10,000 people lived in the camp. 

Ahmed asked to be identified by his first name only, and requested that the name of the organization he works for be withheld due to increasing scrutiny on groups working with refugees in Lebanon. 

Read more: As Lebanon cracks down on Syrians, it becomes ‘dangerous’ to defend them

Anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon has steadily grown for years, escalating as the economic crisis took hold in 2019 and spiking in April with the killing of a Lebanese politician, allegedly by Syrian carjackers. 

As xenophobic discourse has increased, one oft-repeated sentiment is that Syrians are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes. Last October, Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister claimed that 30 percent of crimes are committed by Syrians. Human rights sources noted at the time that there is reason to be “skeptical” of this claim given the range of crimes committed by Lebanese nationals that are not prosecuted. 

In this environment, “cases of theft, killing or harassment affect all Syrians,” Ahmed added. “When someone is a migrant or refugee, there is racism. We are a country that is based on sectarianism and hatred.” However, inside the camps, Palestinians view individual crimes as “unique circumstances” rather than generalizing them to all Syrians, as in other parts of the country, he added. 

In Shatila, many Syrians have fully assimilated, according to Hala Daher, 50, whose family is originally from Deir al-Qasi in historic Palestine. “There is no difference between them [Syrians and Palestinians]. On the contrary, Palestinians have started marrying Syrians, Syrian girls,” she said. “They help each other in corner stores, supermarkets…Here in the camp, we don’t differentiate.”

Palestinians have profited from income from rent and other services they provide to Syrian newcomers. In addition to working for Fatah, Hussein works for an internet company in Burj al-Barajneh. “I have benefited from all of the Syrian customers,” he said. 

But while he is grateful for the business, he noted some sociocultural differences with his Syrian neighbors. “Many are originally from the countryside, such as from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and used to work in agriculture,” he said. Both Hussein and Daher felt there were higher rates of plural marriage and larger families among some Syrians, which they said is less common in the host community.

Moreover, there are perceived differences around aid and socioeconomic status. “There is a perception that Syrians are receiving more assistance than Palestinians,” Ahmed said. “The economic crisis and [2020] port explosion have also left host communities in need,” he explained. Syria Direct contacted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to inquire further, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

“Syrians are a people who love to work and don’t like to lose time,” Daher added. “They are more comfortable financially, you see my corner store is empty [unlike theirs].” 

While the perception that Syrians are more economically stable is significant, it does not hold true at a broader scale. Although both Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon face dire poverty, 87 percent of Syrians live below the poverty level compared to 80 percent of Palestinians and 33 percent of Lebanese citizens.

Syrians and Palestinians find themselves competing for jobs, such as construction, in the underpaid, informal sector. Job opportunities are scarce for Palestinians in Lebanon, as they are barred from more than 39 professions. Most Syrians, meanwhile, cannot access legal work permits.

“When the Syrian crisis started, refugees would take any amount, even half the amount,” less than even underpaid Palestinians were willing to take, Ahmed explained. Still, “Palestinians and Lebanese refuse to work certain jobs” that only Syrians are willing to take, he added.

Khadija, 40, a Syrian refugee from Idlib, works at a corner shop in Burj al-Barajneh selling cleaning products and other miscellaneous goods, 13/6/2024 (Syria Direct/Natacha Danon)

Limited work opportunities

While the cost of living is lower in the camps, life remains difficult. Khadija, 40, originally from Idlib city, arrived in Lebanon 11 years ago. She described Palestinians as “good people—we’re at ease here.” Still, living conditions are “terrible” in Burj al-Barajneh. “There is high poverty and no work,” she explained. 

Khadija works in a shop, but her salary is not enough to make ends meet at the end of the month. She supports herself since she is divorced, having left an abusive husband. However, she cannot leave the camp in search of better work opportunities because her residency has expired and she cannot afford the fees to renew it.

When Rami first came to Lebanon from Homs, he lived in Beirut’s southern Dahiya suburbs. He had a job at a bakery owned by a Lebanese boss, who sponsored his residency, but left it after his hands were severely burned in a workplace accident. His boss threatened to have him deported if he left, but Rami eventually moved to Shatila anyway, losing his legal residency in the process.

In Shatila, Rami’s wages are meager. He does not make enough at his corner store to see a doctor for his injured hands. “There is nothing before us at all,” he said. He hopes to save what little he can to pay $1,900 to travel to Libya, where “there is better work and living standards.” From there, he plans to take a boat onwards to Italy. 

Rami, 25, a Syrian refugee from Homs, stands in his corner store in Shatila where he sells candy, toys and other goods, 13/6/2024 (Syria Direct/Natacha Danon)

In recent years, growing numbers of Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese citizens alike have boarded boats heading across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus, a European Union (EU) member state, seeking safer and more stable lives. Scores have lost their lives in the attempt. 

In May, the EU announced a billion-euro aid package to Lebanon aimed at stemming irregular migration while providing funding to support Syrian refugees and other “vulnerable groups.”

“We’ve come to understand that they [the Lebanese authorities] make agreements to deport us, taking money from UNHCR that we don’t see anything of,” Rami said.

Read more: EU-Lebanon aid deal blows back on Syrian refugees 

Before running a vegetable shop, Safwan used to sell vegetables from a street cart. While others are worse off, life is expensive, he said. He pays around $400 for electricity as the supply of public electricity has decreased to approximately two hours per day. With time, work has taken its toll and anti-Syrian sentiments have ground him down. “I am more tired than you can imagine,” he said. 

The financial burden is particularly high for large families. Abu Muhammad, 53, originally from the town of al-Sweidya in the Raqqa countryside, has a wife and five children to feed. In Syria, he worked as a street cleaner. He now rents a sweet shop in Burj al-Barajneh, but the rent has gone up and he has to purchase private subscriptions for all services, from electricity to water. 

“Thank God the relationship is good” with his Palestinian neighbors, he said. Still, “I might go back [to Syria] if things get more expensive. I’m in God’s hands.”