In late September, Ahmad Hamdo, a 28-year-old Syrian father of four, was forced to flee with his family from Mays el Jabal in south Lebanon as Israeli airstrikes intensified.
Leaving the town, located some 30 metres from the Blue Line, the UN-mapped frontier separating Lebanon from Israel, they headed to Al Rahman refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley’s Taalabaya.
“The Lebanon Intelligence Agency threatened the shawish [camp leader] with an imminent raid on the camp, so we left for an informal shelter in Taalabaya called Bezret Kheir and stayed there for a few nights,” Ahmad tells The New Arab.
From there they entered into Syria, becoming part of the 344,819 Syrian refugees who have returned since 23 September 2024 following an extensive Israeli bombing campaign in the south and Bekaa Valley.
Over the past year, around 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, most in the past two months as Israel escalated an aerial war and launched a ground invasion.
Since September, at least 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon.
For the country’s estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees, who fled the country’s war in 2011, there are no good options as Israel’s military campaign escalates; vulnerable amid their displacement in Lebanon and facing the risk of repression and persecution upon returning to regime areas in Syria.
Return as a last resort
Abou Walid, who was displaced from the town of Braikeh in Nabatieh, south Lebanon, arranged his wife and son’s return to Syria while staying in Lebanon.
“We left Braikeh on 23 September, and I sent my wife and son to Syria the next day. I am currently in Chtoura,” he tells The New Arab. “If I return, I either have to enlist in the army, or I hide at home.”
According to Samer Abou Oday, a Syrian refugee, a focal point for displaced Syrians is the network of informal camps in Arsal, a border town in the north of Lebanon.
“There is no voluntary return. The Lebanese government has made it very difficult for Syrians to stay, and very easy for them to cross back into Syria whenever they want, and wherever they want,” he tells TNA.
While security forces on the Lebanese side facilitate their return, crossing into Syria is becoming more dangerous. On 2 November, Israel targeted the Jousieh crossing with Syria following a strike on Al-Masnaa on 4 October, which is the main crossing between Lebanon and northern Syria.
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Syrians displaced from heavily impacted areas in Lebanon such as the south, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s suburbs have sought shelter in safer areas in central Beirut, north Lebanon, and villages in west Bekaa.
Most, however, have been denied entry to shelters, with only 14 across the country currently accepting displaced Syrians amid ongoing hostilities. Increasingly precarious conditions since October 2023 have pushed many to return to Syria as a last resort.
Syrian refugees injured by Israeli airstrikes since October 2023, for instance, have huge challenges in accessing healthcare and other services in Lebanon due to restrictions on their mobility amid an atmosphere of anti-Syrian sentiment. At least 207 Syrians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since late September.
Israeli bombardments in the south, meanwhile, have meant that Syrian workers have lost their livelihoods and are at significant risk of labour exploitation.
This is the case for Ahmad, who worked in a stone factory in Mays el Jabal before losing his job. Now in Syria, he has been unable to find work.
Abou Walid has been looking for work since the beginning of the war. “I found a job that pays $125 a month for 13 hours of work every day. What can I do with $125 a month? I am displaced. I don’t even have any clothes with me,” he tells The New Arab.
Unsafe conditions in Syria
While return has been made easy by Lebanese security forces, the conditions along the journey, and in Syria, are perilous.
Since the beginning of the escalation, 23 Syrian refugees were arrested upon their return to Syria. Three of them have been released while the rest have been subject to compulsory conscription in the Syrian army. Returnees are also in danger of detainment and forced disappearance by the Syrian regime.
Radwan Al Kassir, a Syrian journalist and activist whose father died in Al-Qusayr in 2013, knows that he would be in danger if he ever returned. “In Syria, there is no mercy,” he tells TNA.
“Every Syrian returning to Syria has an accusation awaiting him. If a Syrian gets detained, no one is going to see him again.”
The mass displacement of Syrians within Lebanon coincides with the Syrian regime’s promise of amnesty in September for political prisoners and men of the conscription age who have not served in the army.
This comes against a backdrop of larger European Union (EU) efforts to increase the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, mainly through the strengthening of the UNHCR, which plays a central role.
Most importantly, many EU countries are looking to reconsider the European Union’s strategy for Syria in the hopes of the regime’s involvement in aiding voluntary returns after a 13-year break in diplomatic ties.
Israel’s war on Lebanon is being viewed as an opportunity to kick-start the process of return to Syria, both from Lebanon and from EU countries, with the governments of Lebanon and Syria, and the European Union, cooperating to this end.
“We are living like prisoners here. We had to return and there is no one to help us here. We came to Manbij in northeast Syria, thinking it is safer, but there are clashes here as well. A strike landed right next to where we are staying,” Ahmad tells The New Arab.
“Everything is difficult and there are obstacles everywhere.”
Nour Nahhas is an independent writer and researcher based in Beirut
Follow her on X: @nournahhas_