Under Israeli fire in Lebanon, many Syrians have nowhere to turn

MARSEILLE — As Said Ayoub Darwish sheltered with his family in an open field in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Tuesday evening, his phone lit up with notifications. An Israeli airstrike had just hit a few meters away from the informal refugee camp he has lived in with his family since fleeing Syria in 2013. War had found them once again.

Pictures and video footage sent by another resident showed thick plumes of gray smoke billowing over al-Said camp. By then, only a handful of refugees remained. Most, including Darwish, had walked to a nearby field the night before, hoping to avoid strikes on populated areas. Days later, they are still stranded out in the open, unable to afford transportation to any public shelters that might take them.

“We’re surviving on the brink of death…all of our employers fled to Syria and left us, without paying us,” Darwish, who is originally from Tal Abyad and worked in agriculture in Lebanon, told Syria Direct by phone. “We don’t have food or milk for the children.”

The Bekaa Valley hosts the largest share of registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon. It is also–alongside the country’s south—in the crosshairs of a major Israeli offensive against Hezbollah that has killed more than 700 people since Monday, including at least 150 women and children. 

The latest escalation follows nearly a year of cross-border exchanges after Hezbollah opened what it terms a “support front” amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack. Preparations are currently underway for a possible Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon. 

More than 100 Syrians are among those killed this week, according to the Access Center for Human Rights (ACHR). The death toll is steadily rising as victims are unearthed from beneath the rubble. A single Israeli strike on the Bekaa village of Younin killed 19 Syrians and one Lebanese citizen on Thursday. 

Israel’s strikes have displaced more than 90,000 people so far, and sent 30,000 people—Lebanese and Syrians—fleeing over the border to neighboring Syria. Caught in the crossfire, Syrians are weighing the risks of return against remaining under the bombs in Lebanon. 

But for many of Lebanon’s 1.5 million Syrians, seeking refuge in the country whose war they fled is unthinkable. Some cannot afford to leave, while others fear conscription or regime persecution, leaving them few options. 

“We can’t make it a few kilometers to Baalbek, let alone to Syria,” Darwish said. Even if he and his family had the financial means to return, they have little to go back to. “Everything was taken from our home, only the walls are left standing,” he told Syria Direct.

Said Ayoub Darwish, 50, standing in front of al-Said camp prior to the latest Israeli offensive, 7/12/2024 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

Barriers to return

“We lived in fear in Syria and now it’s returning to us. There’s nowhere for us to flee,” Rami Wafai, 25, who lives in Beirut’s Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, said. Originally from Syria’s central Homs city, he fled to Lebanon in 2013. Israeli airstrikes have struck close to Shatila camp in neighboring Dahiya, the southern suburbs of Beirut.

“We don’t know what to do, we haven’t left our homes out of fear of the bombing,” Hassan Mustafa Omar, 42, said. Omar is currently sheltering in Chtoura in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley with his wife and four children, listening to the sounds of “loud bombing.”

Like some, he has considered returning to Syria. “I want to return to Syria but I don’t have a home to return to and I’m wanted for reservist military service. I don’t know what my fate would be in Syria,” he added.

Rizan al-Hassan, 40, lived in southern Lebanon until the latest Israeli attacks, working farmland and living in a house provided by his employer. “Everybody fled the south, the situation was extremely difficult,” the father of four said. “I was forced to abandon my job and home there.” 

Before cross-border hostilities began last October, at least 90,000 Syrian refugees lived in Lebanon’s South and Nabatiyeh governorates bordering Israel, according to figures Syria Direct obtained from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in January. 

Displaced from the south, al-Hassan is not considering going back to Syria, which he fled in 2015. “How can I return when I don’t have a house in Syria, and am wanted for military service,” he said. His house is occupied by regime forces, as it is in a village on the front lines with the Turkish-backed opposition Syrian National Army (SNA) in the Afrin countryside. 

Al-Hassan has found a residence to rent in the Keserwan district, northeast of Beirut, for $300 a month. He hopes to find work there, and believes “these attacks are temporary—they won’t last long.” 

Wafai has also ruled out going back. “Syria isn’t safe for Syrians. It’s safe for Lebanese and everyone else, but not for Syrians,” he said. 

Syrians made up around 80 percent of the thousands crossing into Syria from Lebanon this week, United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative Gonzalo Vargas Llosa said at a press conference on Friday. However, a disproportionate number of those seeking refuge in Damascus and other government-controlled areas are women and children. Returning to Syria is particularly risky for men, as many are wanted for military service. 

“The risks facing returnees to Syria have been well-documented,” Alex Simon, co-founder of the Beirut-based Synaps research center studying mobility and vulnerability, said. “At best, they confront a collapsed economy, weak or non-existent public services, and a state and security apparatus that fund themselves by extracting bribes from citizens.”

However, “the most at-risk Syrians, notably political dissidents and military defectors, can face far worse: including detention, torture, and enforced disappearance,” he added.

Navigating displacement

While returning to Syria is untenable for most, staying in Lebanon means reliving war and facing multiple layers of vulnerabilities. “For Syrians specifically, this comes in a year when we’ve already seen a surge in arbitrary deportations, evictions, and vigilante violence. That backdrop adds to the precarity of newly displaced Syrians, some of whom report being turned away from shelters or entire municipalities,” Simon noted.

Many shelters have prioritized Lebanese and Palestinians, and denied Syrians. Some Syrians have also reportedly been evicted by their landlords to make room for displaced Lebanese.

“They face discrimination that bars them from accessing collective shelters, renting housing, or entering camps in many areas,” Mohammad Hasan, the executive director of ACHR, a Beirut and Paris-based human rights organization, told Syria Direct. “They are left stranded on the streets of north Lebanon and the Bekaa region, especially those without relatives in other parts of Lebanon,” he added.

Municipalities in the Bekaa Valley have warned Syrians in some camps against hosting recently displaced friends and relatives, “threatening immediate eviction for noncompliance,” Hasan said, citing complaints ACHR received. 

In this context, Hasan views the thousands of Syrians crossing the border this week as linked to this exclusion, a choice made by many “with no option left.”