DAMASCUS: Badr Honainy, a Syrian-Egyptian journalist based in Damascus, had spent days preparing for a job interview after being shortlisted for a sports editor job at the BBC.
But after waiting for hours at an official Syria-Lebanon border crossing, he was turned back without an explanation.
“This was a great opportunity for me,” said the disappointed 24-year-old.
As sanctions on Syria tighten, the only reprieve for its residents seems to be Lebanon. Attending embassy interviews, holding family reunions, sitting for international tests, joining training programs, and much more can only be done in Beirut.
However, with more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees flooding its borders since the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Lebanon has struggled to control the influx of refugees.
“I provided all the necessary documents and I have a journalist pass, an Egyptian passport, and a residency permit, yet I was treated badly by a few border officers and was not even given a chance to ask the smallest question,” said Honainy.
He was transferred to a security office but denied entry after waiting for hours.
“They refused to listen or provide me with alternative solutions,” he said.
“At the Masnaa Border Crossing, you notice that those who seem poverty-stricken are less likely to receive an entry permit because they seem very likely to stay in Lebanon as refugees,” according to a source who lives in Damascus and regularly visits Beirut.
People in fancy cars and elegant clothes are more likely to enter without complications, he said, “but sometimes even these are not lucky enough to enter in time for conducting their business.”
“Some 30 percent of the people in Lebanon at the moment are Syrian refugees, giving Lebanon one of the highest per capita refugee (populations) in the world,” Dr. David Romano, professor of Middle East politics at Missouri State University, told Arab News.
“Among Lebanese voters, who have lost patience with such a burden, restrictive policies toward the entry of Syrians seem like a popular option for the government.”
Some Lebanese officials also fear the entry of former Daesh fighters looking to escape Syria, he said.
“The casualties of this sort of Lebanese reaction, unfortunately, include average Syrians who only need to go to Lebanon for day trips to buy things and get things done that they cannot do in Syria, such as banking, getting visas and sitting for exams like the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations).”
Last month, Lebanese General Security announced plans to implement new controls to further restrict the entry of Syrians into Lebanese territory through the Masnaa Border Crossing, a land-based crossing linking the customs checkpoints of Masnaa in Lebanon and Jdeidat Yabous in Syria. The date on which the new restrictions take effect was not announced.
The new regulations classify Syrians’ entry into six categories, each requiring specific documents and are given a specific type of residence or entry permit.
Sami Jamal, 33, a Syrian living in Damascus who travels regularly to Lebanon, said: “The people of Syria are largely helping the Lebanese economy, be it through investments or tourism, yet Lebanon wouldn’t cease to seek creative ways to restrict our entry.”
Alia A, 31, travels to Beirut every two months to see her fiancé, who lives in the UAE.
For her tourist visa she needs to carry $1,000 and book a hotel room in Beirut in advance.
“Now I’ll have to carry $2,000 for the same trip and I don’t feel comfortable carrying all this cash,” she told Arab News.
“I cannot blame Lebanon,” Anas, 21, a computer engineering student at Damascus University, said. “Many of my friends who could not be exempted from the compulsory military service fled to Lebanon without plans. I cannot imagine how many people a country as small as Lebanon can accommodate.”
Armand Cucciniello III, a former American diplomat and adviser to the US military, told Arab News, said: “Lebanon is a frontline state in the war in Syria, so it’s natural that people are flocking to the border,”
“But the country is very small and lacks an effective government and resources—all the reasons that may be contributing to the pushback against more refugees.”
Cucciniello believes identity could also be at play here. “Most Syrians coming to Lebanon are reportedly Sunni, whereas the majority of Lebanon are Shiite or Christian,” he explained, “so any possible change in the country’s already troubled demographic could be a source of concern and recalcitrance on the part of border and immigration authorities.”
He pointed out that Lebanon took in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian “temporary” refugees after 1948, who eventually became militarized and played a role in the civil war that ravaged the country in the 1980s.
“The country does not have a positive collective memory, if you will, of refugees, which could be contributing to its reluctance to let in more,” he concluded.
Earlier this year, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Lebanon, Christophe Martin, said “the majority of Syrian refugees in Lebanon want to return home.”
In 2017, the UN said that “the vast majority of the roughly one million Syrian refugees registered in Lebanon now find themselves impoverished and in debt, with levels of hardship increasing each year.”
“Lebanon lacks good infrastructure,” Cucciniello said, “and we’ve seen Syrian refugees set up camp over the years in areas where the local population, too, is struggling.”
Syrians stifled by Lebanon’s new entry restrictions
Syrians stifled by Lebanon’s new entry restrictions
Ahead of another donor conference for Syria, humanitarian workers fear more aid cuts
- Meanwhile, millions of Syrians have been pulled into poverty, and struggle with accessing food and health care as the economy deteriorates across the country’s front lines
- id organizations are making their annual pitches to donors ahead of a fundraising conference in Brussels for Syria on Monday
“We used to get food aid, hygiene items,” said the mother of four. “Now we haven’t had much in a while.”
Al-Salim’s story is similar to that of many in this region of Syria, where most of the 5.1 million people have been internally displaced — sometimes more than once — in the country’s civil war, now in its 14th year, and rely on aid to survive.
UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations have for years struggled with shrinking budgets, further worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and conflicts elsewhere. The wars in Ukraine and Sudan, and more recently Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip are the focus of the world’s attention.
Syria’s war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of of 23 million, has long remained largely frozen and so are also efforts to find a viable political solution to end it. Meanwhile, millions of Syrians have been pulled into poverty, and struggle with accessing food and health care as the economy deteriorates across the country’s front lines.
Along with the deepening poverty, there is growing hostility in neighboring countries that host Syrian refugees and that struggle with crises of their own.
Aid organizations are now making their annual pitches to donors ahead of a fundraising conference in Brussels for Syria on Monday. But humanitarian workers believe that pledges will likely fall short and that further aid cuts would follow.
“We have moved from assisting 5.5 million a year to about 1.5 million people in Syria,” Carl Skau, the UN World Food Program’s deputy executive director, told The Associated Press. He spoke during a recent visit to Lebanon, which hosts almost 780,000 registered Syrian refugees — and hundreds of thousands of others who are undocumented.
“When I look across the world, this is the (aid) program that has shrunk the most in the shortest period for time,” Skau said.
Just 6 percent of the United Nations’ appeal for aid to Syria in 2024 has so far been secured ahead of Monday’s annual fundraising conference organized by the European Union, said David Carden, UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria.
For the northwestern region of Syria, that means the UN is only able to feed 600,000 out of the 3.6 million people facing food insecurity, meaning they lack access to sufficient food. The UN says some 12.9 million Syrians are food insecure across the country.
The UN hopes the Brussels conference can raise more than $4 billion in “lifesaving aid” to support almost two-thirds of the 16.7 million Syrians in need, both within the war-torn country and in neighboring countries, particularly Turkiye, Lebanon and Jordan.
At last year’s conference, donors pledged $10.3 billion — about $6 billion in grants and the rest in loans — just months after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkiye and much of northern Syria, killing over 59,000 people, including 6,000 in Syria.
For northwestern Syria, an enclave under rebel control, aid “is literally a matter of life and death” this year, Carden told the AP during a recent visit to Idlib province. Without funding, 160 health facilities there would close by end of June, he said.
The International Rescue Committee’s head for Syria, Tanya Evans, said needs are “at their highest ever,” with increasing numbers of Syrians turning to child labor and taking on debt to pay for food and basics.
In Lebanon, where nearly 90 percent of Syrian refugees live in poverty, they also face flagging aid and increasing resentment from the Lebanese, struggling with their own country’s economic crisis since 2019. Disgruntled officials have accused the refugees of surging crime and competition in the job market.
Lebanon’s bickering political parties have united in a call for a crackdown on undocumented Syrian migrants and demand refugees return to so-called “safe zones” in Syria.
UN agencies, human rights groups and Western governments say there are no such areas.
Um Omar, a Syrian refugee from Homs, works in a grocery store in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli — an impoverished community that once warmly welcomed Syrian refugees.
For her work, she gets to bring home every day a bundle of bread and some vegetables to feed her family of five. They live rent-free in a tent on a plot of land that belongs to the grocery store’s owners.
“I have to leave the kids early in the morning without breakfast so I can work,” she said, asking to be identified only by her nickname, Arabic for “Omar’s mother.” She fears reprisals because of heightened hostilities against Syrians.
The shrinking UN aid they receive does not pay the bills. Her husband, who shares her fears for their safety, used to work as a day laborer but has rarely left their home in weeks.
She says deportation to Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s government is firmly entrenched, would spell doom for her family.
“If my husband was returned to Syria, he’ll either go to jail or (face) forced conscription,” she explains.
Still, many in Lebanon tell her family, “you took our livelihoods,” Um Omar said. There are also those who tell them they should leave, she added, so that the Lebanese “will finally catch a break.”
Aid trucks from Egypt enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing: media
- All aid from Egypt is inspected by Israeli authorities and distributed via the UN
CAIRO: Aid trucks from Egypt began entering the Gaza Strip on Sunday through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, state-linked media Al-Qahera News reported.
A total of “200 trucks” had moved from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, which has been shut since early May when Israel seized the Palestinian side of the terminal, to the Kerem Shalom crossing, some 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the south.
Egypt has refused to coordinate aid through Rafah as long as Israeli troops control the Palestinian side.
But on Friday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi agreed in a call with his US counterpart Joe Biden to allow aid through Kerem Shalom, the other entry point into southern Gaza, the White House said.
Al-Qahera News did not specify how many trucks had made their way through inspection into besieged Gaza, but said “four fuel trucks” had already crossed and were heading to hospitals.
All aid from Egypt is inspected by Israeli authorities and distributed via the United Nations.
The remainder of the 200 trucks were “expected to cross into Gaza today,” Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in Al-Arish — where the bulk of aid arrives — said.
Hamas says it captured Israeli soldiers in Gaza
- Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman: ‘Our fighters lured a Zionist force into an ambush inside a tunnel’
- The Israeli military, in a statement, denied the claim of Hamas’ armed wing
CAIRO: A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing said on Sunday its fighters had captured Israeli soldiers during fighting in Jabalia in northern Gaza on Saturday, though the Israeli military denied the claim.
The Hamas armed wing spokesman did not say how many soldiers had been abducted and showed no proof of the claim.
“Our fighters lured a Zionist force into an ambush inside a tunnel ... The fighters withdrew after they left all members of the force dead, wounded, and captured,” Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Al Qassam Brigades, said in a recorded message broadcast by Al Jazeera early on Sunday.
The Israeli military on Sunday denied the claim by Hamas’ armed wing.
“The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) clarifies that there is no incident in which a soldier was abducted,” the military said in a statement.
Hamas released a video that appeared to show a bloodied person being dragged along the ground in a tunnel and photos of military fatigue and rifle. Reuters could not independently verify the identity of the person shown in the video nor his or her condition.
The comments by Abu Ubaida came hours after prospects for a resumption of mediated Gaza ceasefire talks grew on Saturday.
An official with knowledge of the matter said a decision had been taken to resume the talks next week after the chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency met the head of the CIA and the prime minister of Qatar.
The source, who declined to be identified by name or nationality, said it had been decided that “in the coming week negotiations will open based on new proposals led by the mediators, Egypt and Qatar and with active US involvement.”
A Hamas official later denied Israeli media reports the talks would resume in Cairo on Tuesday, telling Reuters: “There is no date.”
After more than seven months of war in Gaza, the mediators have struggled to secure a breakthrough, with Israel seeking the release of hostages held by Hamas and Hamas seeking an end to the war and a release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel began the operation in response to Hamas-led militants attacking southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Scuffles erupt between police, protesters demanding return of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza
- Israel says around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more
- Around half of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas and other militants have been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel
JERUSALEM: Scuffles between Israeli police and protesters erupted in Tel Aviv on Saturday after thousands gathered to demonstrate against the government and demand that it bring back the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a small US military vessel and what appeared to be a strip of docking area washed up on a beach near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, not far from the US-built pier on which the Israeli military said humanitarian aid is moving into the Palestinian territory.
Also on Saturday, Israeli bombardments were reported in northern and central Gaza.
Some protesters in Tel Aviv carried photos of the female soldiers who appeared in a video earlier in the week showing them soon after they were abducted during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 started the war between Israel and Hamas. Some held banners reading “Stop the war” and “Help.” They called on the government to reach a deal to release the dozens of hostages still in captivity.
The protesters also called for the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded new elections.
“We all saw the video, we could not stay at home after the government abandoned all these people,” said Hilit Sagi, from the group “Women Protest for the Return of All Hostages.”
Divisions among Israelis have deepened over how Netanyahu has handled the war against Hamas after the attack that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. Israel says around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
“Basically they are not doing enough in order for the hostages to come back, either with military force, with (a) hostages’ deal, negotiating. Nothing is being done,” said Snir Dahan, uncle of hostage Carmel Gat, still in captivity in Gaza.
Earlier in the week, the bodies of three hostages killed were recovered from Gaza, Israel’s army said Friday. The army said they were killed on the day of the attack and their bodies were taken to Gaza. The announcement came less than a week after the army said it found the bodies of three other Israeli hostages killed on Oct. 7.
Around half of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas and other militants have been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Netanyahu’s government has faced increasing pressure, both at home and abroad, to stop the war and allow humanitarian aid into the enclave that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, almost 80 percent of whom have been displaced.
Also this week, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.
On Friday the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and to open the nearby border crossing for crucial humanitarian aid. The top United Nations court also said Israel must give war crimes investigators access to Gaza.
However, the judges stopped short of ordering a full ceasefire across the entire Palestinian territory, and Israel is unlikely to comply with the court’s ruling. South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians during the war in Gaza, which Israel vehemently denies.
“We were hoping the war would end,” said Islam Abu Kamar, who moved from Gaza City to Rafah following the ground operation launched by Israel after the Hamas attack in October.
In the past two weeks, more than a million Palestinians have fled Rafah as Israeli forces pressed deeper into the city. Israel’s takeover this month of the Rafah border crossing, a key transit point for fuel and supplies for Gaza, has contributed to bringing aid operations to near collapse, the UN and relief groups say.
Israel says it needs to invade Rafah to destroy Hamas’ last stronghold. Egypt said it agreed to send UN humanitarian aid trucks through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, Israel’s main entry point into southern Gaza. But it remains unclear if the trucks will be able to enter because fighting still rages in Rafah.
Israel said aid is moving into the Palestinian territory through northern Gaza and via the US-built pier. On Saturday, a small US military boat and what appeared to be a strip of docking area washed up on a beach near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod.
The US Central Command said four of its vessels supporting the humanitarian aid mission were affected by rough seas with two of them anchoring near the pier off the Gaza coast and another two in Israel.
US officials said no injuries were reported and the US is working with the Israeli army to recover the vessels, Central Command said.
American officials hope the pier at maximum capacity can bring the equivalent of 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza daily. That’s a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food, emergency nutritional treatments and other supplies that USAID says are needed each day to bring people in Gaza back from the brink of famine and address the humanitarian crisis brought on by the 7-month-old Israel-Hamas war.
Israeli bombardments continued in the enclave on Saturday with reports of strikes northern and central Gaza. Witnesses said people were killed in strikes on the cities of Jabaliya and Nuseirat.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Tunisian president fires interior, social affairs ministers in partial cabinet reshuffle
TUNIS: Tunisian president Kais Saied dismissed on Saturday the Interior Minister Kamel Feki as part of a partial cabinet reshuffle, the presidency said.
The partial cabinet reshuffle also included replacing the minister of social affairs, Malek Ezzahi.
Saied appointed Khaled Nouri as the new interior minister and Kamal Madouri as minister of social affairs.
