‘Escaped One War To Land in Another’: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Endure Hardship Under Israeli Bombings
During the first week of the Israeli offensive, almost 100 Syrians were killed, while those who fled have not yet received any kind of support
[Sidon] – Jaylan Sedki Omar spreads out her arsenal of documents on the grass. Each one is protected by plastic envelopes that allow you to read their contents but prevent the morning dew from ruining them. One is written in Arabic, another in English, and the most important is the exceptional one, the one that many long for, in Spanish. “Spain has already given us the approval to accept us as refugees; so, what are we doing here?” asked this Syrian from Afrin, on the border with Turkey, while a handful of children flutter around her, and she shows the document that proves it.
Here is a place where no one should be. A place where no one else goes. This is a simple roundabout in the middle of the city of Sidon, just 40 kilometers from Beirut, where a hundred Syrian refugees who have escaped the bombings in the south are trying to survive.
Every few minutes, an unknown hand extends a plate of food to Jaylan. She rejects them without appetite under the sun. With her right hand, she tries to get some privacy by holding the blanket she has placed between two trees. Under this piece of cloth, her family of five has been sleeping outdoors for three days and three nights. “My husband worked in Nabatiye [one of the main cities in southern Lebanon], we rented a house there, and everything was fine,” this Syrian refugee told The Media Line.
Jaylan has been in Lebanon since 2014 when another war drove her from her home and 370 kilometers away from her native land. “But the bombings started, our house was attacked, and we ran away,” recalled Jaylan about two Mondays ago, the deadliest day in recent Lebanese history when the Israeli Army intensified its attacks on southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Baalbek.
We managed to escape with what we were wearing; all our money, all our savings are under the rubble of our house. They sent us to the schools where the Lebanese are taking refuge, but they told us that we were not welcome, and we ended up here.
“We managed to escape with what we were wearing; all our money, all our savings are under the rubble of our house,” she said, clinging tightly to the bag containing the documents from the United Nations and the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration proving that she should not be here. “They sent us to the schools where the Lebanese are taking refuge, but they told us that we were not welcome, and we ended up here,” she added.
This holiday season, give to:
Truth and understanding
The Media Line's intrepid correspondents are in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan providing first-person reporting.
They all said they cover it.
We see it.
We report with just one agenda: the truth.
She has to live in insalubrious conditions with her family of five. “Living on the pavement is miserable; we have not showered for three days, and the cafés around us do not even let us go to the bathroom,” Jaylan said. The muezzin’s prayer song reminded her of the shame of the previous day. “I had to go to the mosque and force the children to bathe as best I could. They are vomiting, they have diarrhea, and there is not a single bathroom around,” she said, while her eldest daughter kept her gaze lost.
Nobody really expected that, after 11 months of cross-border clashes with Hezbollah, Israel would bring war to Lebanon. In less than two weeks, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives across the country. What was predictable was that, as soon as that happened, no one would look after the Syrians.
They make up around one and a half million of Lebanon’s estimated population of 5.3 million. Although the figure is somewhat debatable, the land of the cedars is clearly the state with the most refugees per capita in the world. The severe economic crisis it suffers has hit hard on a deplorably vulnerable population. In 2022, the poverty rate among the Lebanese was 33%, but 87% for Syrians. Added to the dire situation is growing racism and discrimination among the population. Used as a scapegoat for all of Lebanon’s problems, they have suffered violence in their own skin as government actions to deport them back to the insecurity of Syria increase.
But Israeli bombs do not discriminate. In the first week of the bombings, from September 23 to 30, 96 Syrians were killed due to Israeli shelling targeting various Lebanese regions, according to documentation by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). Among them, there were 36 children and 19 women.
We escaped from one war to land in another. We were at home, and the rockets started falling around us. I grabbed my children and ran with no money, no clothes, nothing.
“We escaped from one war to land in another,” Tagrid Sayad al Ali, a native of the Syrian city of Hama, told The Media Line. With a hint of weariness in her voice, she recalled her second escape to save her life. “We were at home, and the rockets started falling around us. I grabbed my children and ran with no money, no clothes, nothing,” she said. Her husband smiles resignedly with a toothless mouth.
One of her daughters can’t stop coughing. A hoarse, deep cough shakes her. “Of course, the children get sick if we sleep in the open,” she complained. “I hug them tightly during the night, not because I’m afraid, but because it’s the only thing I can do,” Tagrid said, while she readjusted her hijab and said no with her hand to the umpteenth plate of food offered to her. That, and bottles of water every now and then, is the only thing they offer them.
Since the first day of the offensive, desperation has driven at least 300,000 people to cross the border into Syria via the two crossings between the two countries, according to Lebanese authorities. Israel bombed the Lebanese road leading to Masnaa crossing point after accusing Hezbollah of smuggling weapons from Syria through it.
To Syria, to do what? There is absolutely nothing there. We can’t work or feed our children,” she said bitterly. “At least here, from time to time, something comes out.
Tagrid let out an ironic laugh when asked if she would join these caravans on their way home. “To Syria, to do what?” she answered. “There is absolutely nothing there. We can’t work or feed our children,” she said bitterly. “At least here, from time to time, something comes out,” she added.
Meanwhile, her little girl –who has never known Syria and whose mother will make sure that, as long as this continues, she never gets to know her native country– continued to cough. Around her, there are unfinished plates of food and a thin mattress without sheets. The location of the trees has allowed them to find a more hidden place thanks to several blankets.
For a moment, they stop seeing the other families with whom they share the grass. Lebanese cars keep driving around these hundred people condemned by their nationality to protect themselves from the bombs–again–on a soft patch of land.
