Syrians in Lebanon Fear Unprecedented Restrictions, Deportations 

A Syrian refugee boy runs at an informal tented settlement in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon May 23, 2024. (Reuters)
A Syrian refugee boy runs at an informal tented settlement in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon May 23, 2024. (Reuters)
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Syrians in Lebanon Fear Unprecedented Restrictions, Deportations 

A Syrian refugee boy runs at an informal tented settlement in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon May 23, 2024. (Reuters)
A Syrian refugee boy runs at an informal tented settlement in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon May 23, 2024. (Reuters)

The soldiers came before daybreak, singling out the Syrian men without residence permits from the tattered camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. As toddlers wailed around them, Mona, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon for a decade, watched Lebanese troops shuffle her brother onto a truck headed for the Syrian border.

Thirteen years since Syria's conflict broke out, Lebanon remains home to the largest refugee population per capita in the world: roughly 1.5 million Syrians - half of whom are refugees formally registered with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR - in a country of approximately 4 million Lebanese.

They are among some five million Syrian refugees who spilled out of Syria into neighboring countries, while millions more are displaced within Syria. Donor countries in Brussels this week pledged fewer funds in Syria aid than last year.

With Lebanon struggling to cope with an economic meltdown that has crushed livelihoods and most public services, its chronically underfunded security forces and typically divided politicians now agree on one thing: Syrians must be sent home.

Employers have been urged to stop hiring Syrians for menial jobs. Municipalities have issued new curfews and have even evicted Syrian tenants, two humanitarian sources told Reuters. At least one township in northern Lebanon has shuttered an informal camp, sending Syrians scattering, the sources said.

Lebanese security forces issued a new directive this month shrinking the number of categories through which Syrians can apply for residency - frightening many who would no longer qualify for legal status and now face possible deportation.

Lebanon has organized voluntary returns for Syrians, through which 300 travelled home in May. But more than 400 have also been summarily deported by the Lebanese army, two humanitarian sources told Reuters, caught in camp raids or at checkpoints set up to identify Syrians without legal residency.

They are automatically driven across the border, refugees and humanitarian workers say, fueling concerns about rights violations, forced military conscription or arbitrary detention.

Mona, who asked to change her name in fear of Lebanese authorities, said her brother was told to register with Syria's army reserves upon his entry. Fearing a similar fate, the rest of the camp's men no longer venture out.

"None of the men can pick up their kids from school, or go to the market to get things for the house. They can't go to any government institutions, or hospital, or court," Mona said.

She must now care for her brother's children, who were not deported, through an informal job she has at a nearby factory. She works at night to evade checkpoints along her commute.

A sign that reads "The return of the displaced is a right and a duty", is placed along a highway in Jounieh, Lebanon May 23, 2024. (Reuters)

'WRONG & NOT SUSTAINABLE'

Lebanon has deported refugees in the past, and political parties have long insisted parts of Syria are safe enough for large-scale refugee returns.

But in April, the killing of a local Lebanese party official blamed on Syrians touched off a concentrated campaign of anti-refugee sentiment.

Hate speech flourished online, with more than 50% of the online conversation about refugees in Lebanon focused on deporting them and another 20% referring to Syrians as an "existential threat," said Lebanese research firm InflueAnswers.

The tensions have extended to international institutions. Lebanon's foreign minister has pressured UNHCR's representative to rescind a request to halt the new restrictions and lawmakers slammed a one billion euro aid package from the European Union as a "bribe" to keep hosting refugees.

"This money that the EU is sending to the Syrians, let them send it to Syria," said Roy Hadchiti, a media representative for the Free Patriotic Movement, speaking at an anti-refugee rally organized by the conservative Christian party.

He, like a growing number of Lebanese, complained that Syrian refugees received more aid than desperate Lebanese. "Go see them in the camps - they have solar panels, while Lebanese can't even afford a private generator subscription," he said.

The UN still considers Syria unsafe for large-scale returns and said rising anti-refugee rhetoric is alarming.

"I am very concerned because it can result in... forced returns, which are both wrong and not sustainable," UNHCR head Filippo Grandi told Reuters.

"I understand the frustrations in host countries - but please don't fuel it further."

Zeina, a Syrian refugee who also asked her name be changed, said her husband's deportation last month left her with no work or legal status in an increasingly hostile Lebanese town.

Returning has its own dangers: her children were born in Lebanon and do not have Syrian ID cards, and her home in Homs province remains in ruins since a 2012 government strike that forced her to flee.

"Even now, when I think of those days, and I think of my parents or anyone else going back, they can't. The house is flattened. What kind of return is that?" she said.



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.