Thousands of Syrian refugees are among those fleeing the escalating violence in Lebanon between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.
With most of the violence taking place in southern Lebanon, thousands of civilians are seeking safety elsewhere in the tiny Middle Eastern country.
Mustafa Rashid, a Syrian refugee living in southern Lebanon, said his family and three other Syrian families were stranded at a house as they anxiously waited for a way out.
“Everyone is trying to leave. We are trying to reach Beirut,” he told VOA via a messaging app.
In the capital, Beirut, many churches and schools were quickly turned into temporary shelters to receive thousands of people from southern Lebanon, including hundreds of Syrian families.
Nihad, a pastor at an evangelical Christian church near Beirut who gave only his first name for security reasons, said his church alone has received about 150 fleeing Syrian families.
“Some of them were sheltered in the church itself, while others were taken to some Syrian families who live around here,” he told VOA on Thursday in a phone interview.
The pastor said the church was overwhelmed with the influx of displaced people, having received limited financial donations from a local relief group and a private American citizen.
According to the United Nations, Lebanon hosts an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have been there since the beginning of Syria’s conflict in 2011.
The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was increasing its support for the growing number of displaced Lebanese and Syrian nationals. The U.N. said Wednesday that upwards of 90,000 people in Lebanon had been displaced during the previous five days.
Lebanese officials said more than 600 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes that are targeting Hezbollah fighters and weapons. The Lebanese militant group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
“This bloodshed is extracting a terrible toll, driving tens of thousands from their homes,” Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It is yet another ordeal for families who previously fled war in Syria, only now to be bombed in the country where they sought shelter.”
The UNHCR said thousands of Lebanese and Syrian people were fleeing to Syria. According to the Saudi-funded Al Arabiya news channel, more than 20,000 Syrian and Lebanese citizens so far have crossed the border into Syria, with hundreds of vehicles lining up at a border crossing between the two countries.
Bassam Alahmad, executive director of the Paris-based advocacy group Syrians for Truth and Justice, however, said returning to Syria isn’t an option for all the Lebanon-based Syrian refugees.
“While some Syrian refugees have already returned to Syria, it is a big risk for the majority of those living in Lebanon,” he told VOA. “There are many refugees who are wanted by the Syrian regime. They fear to go back and face potential arrest or forced disappearance.”
Alahmad said one of his group’s researchers who lives in Lebanon is among those who cannot go back.
“He fled Syria a few years ago because he opposed the regime, so it is not possible for him to return safely,” Alahmad said.
Horan Hem, a Syrian Kurdish refugee in Lebanon, said he would rather live in an uncertain situation in Lebanon than return to face persecution in Syria.
“With everything going on here, it is still safer for me to stay in Lebanon than going back to Syria,” he told VOA.
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday directed his government to provide assistance for fleeing Lebanese citizens, without any mention of Syrian refugees.
Lebanon’s health ministry announced Thursday that 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a village in the Bekaa Valley region, including 19 Syrian nationals.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday that at least 103 Syrians have been killed in Lebanon since the beginning of the latest escalation.
This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.
