How Does the Lebanon Disaster Impact Syria?

An aerial view of ruined structures at the port, damaged by an explosion a day earlier, on August 5, 2020 in Beirut, Lebanon. (Getty Images)
An aerial view of ruined structures at the port, damaged by an explosion a day earlier, on August 5, 2020 in Beirut, Lebanon. (Getty Images)
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How Does the Lebanon Disaster Impact Syria?

An aerial view of ruined structures at the port, damaged by an explosion a day earlier, on August 5, 2020 in Beirut, Lebanon. (Getty Images)
An aerial view of ruined structures at the port, damaged by an explosion a day earlier, on August 5, 2020 in Beirut, Lebanon. (Getty Images)

The impact of the Beirut blast on Damascus will not be limited to direct losses, such as victims and material damage to Syrians living in Lebanon, but it will reach the political, economic and military spheres.

As the debris and dust began to settle over the scene of massive devastation at Beirut port and the surrounding areas, Lebanese officials again began to bring up the issue of Syrian refugees in Lebanon whose numbers exceed 1 million. Many have again called on them to return to their homes, holding them responsible for Lebanon’s crises or using them as negotiations pawns with western countries. Some officials have threatened to allow them to migrate to Europe should the situation in Lebanon deteriorate further. All this while they have neglected to mention that Syrian workers had immediately headed to the blast site soon after the explosion to help in rescuing the wounded and removing the rubble.

Some Lebanese officials have even linked the ammonium nitrate, which was stored at the port and that caused the blast, to Syria. They claimed that it was being stored there ahead of transporting it to armed factions in Syria. Others said they were going to be transported to regime forces and their allies to be used in their military operations. Both claims have a common factor: The stockpile was being kept in the Lebanese port to be used in the nine-year Syrian conflict - a war that every Lebanese side has exploited to further their own interests.

In both Damascus and Beirut, some parties believe that the blast may open doors that have been shut. They said the explosion would force sides that are advocating Damascus’ economic and political isolation to open new paths with the regime from the humanitarian angle. The first signs of such a move came to light when the Syrian presidency announced that President Bashar Assad had contacted his Lebanese counterpart Michel Aoun to stress Syria’s support for “fraternal Lebanon and its resistant people. We are confident that you can overcome the impact of this tragic development and embark on reconstruction as soon as possible.”

After this message of compassion, it was clear that there are hopes that the Lebanese catastrophe could be exploited to reach a breakthrough with European and western powers over sanctions imposed on Damascus and the diplomatic and political isolation is its facing.

There is also another opportunity to be exploited: With Beirut port out of service, the search is now on for an alternative that would be used for Syria and Lebanon’s reconstruction. Syria’s Latakia port could be one possibility. How? It is the only crossing on the Turkish border that is used to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Syria. Beirut port was used to deliver relief to Damascus. With it now out of the picture, other crossings that can handle large shipments are being considered. The United Nations had declared soon after the Beirut blast that the development will negatively affect aid to Syria.

Some parties are pushing for Latakia to serve as the alternative. The port is located near a Russian military base that is being eyed by an Iranian company. There is no doubt that Moscow will push for a Syrian port to act as an alternative in an attempt to reach a breakthrough in the wall of Syria’s isolation.

Such a move will complicate western efforts that want to support Lebanon in wake of the catastrophe, while also avoiding the normalization of relations between Beirut and Damascus. New tensions over this file are on the horizon between regional and international forces.

As for military repercussions, calls for calm in the fighting in Syria may arise in wake of the Beirut blast. On the other hand, some sides may take advantage of countries’ preoccupation with Lebanon to settle scores in Syria. However, this all depends on just how much the blast affected Hezbollah. Some parties are attempting to use the disaster to apply more pressure on the party. The movement was already under pressure from the stifling Lebanese economic crisis and the response to Israel’s assassination of one of its members in Damascus. Now it is coming under more pressure.

In all likelihood the party will now be preoccupied in the near and not so distant future with the Beirut blast and the upcoming international tribunal indictment over the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Some parties believe that these developments may prompt Hezbollah to reassess its calculations in Syria. Others believe that Russian pressure on the party will come into play in compliance with American and Israeli demands to have it withdraw its members from the Golan Heights, Daraa and Sweida in southern Syria.

Furthermore, some western analysts believe that Israel may exploit the new equation in Lebanon to increase its attacks against Iranian positions in Syria to avoid any strategic entrenchment on its northern front as the November 3 American elections draw near. All of this could lead matters to spiral out of control of the hands of major players who can contain the developments in Syria and Lebanon.



As Israel Advances in Gaza, Many Exhausted Families Flee Again 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
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As Israel Advances in Gaza, Many Exhausted Families Flee Again 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)

As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again. Many are packing a few belongings and trudging off in search of new shelters. Some say they just can’t bear to move.

When ordered out of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could only grab some food and blankets before making their way south March 19. It was their eighth time fleeing over the past 18 months of war.

"There is no longer any taste to life," said Suliman, a former university professor. "Life and death have become one and the same for us."

Suliman is among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled temporary shelters since Israel shattered a 2-month-old ceasefire on March 18 with renewed bombardment and ground assaults.

Daunted by the notion of starting over, some Palestinians are ignoring the latest evacuation orders — even if it means risking their lives.

"After one year and a half of war that has exhausted everyone, children and their parents, too, are just worn out physically and mentally," said Rosalia Bollen, UNICEF’s communication specialist.

For the past month, Israel has blocked all food, fuel and supplies from entering Gaza, and aid groups say there are no more tents or other shelter supplies to help the newly displaced. On Tuesday, the World Food Program shut down all its bakeries in Gaza, on which hundreds of thousands rely for bread, because it had run out of flour.

Many are fleeing with almost no belongings

Israel’s evacuation orders now cover large swaths of the Gaza Strip, including many areas of Gaza City and towns in the north, parts of the southern city of Khan Younis, and almost the entire southern city of Rafah and its surroundings.

As of March 23, more than 140,000 people had been displaced again since the end of the ceasefire, according to the latest UN estimate — and tens of thousands more are estimated to have fled under evacuation orders over the past week.

Every time families have moved during the war, they have had to leave behind belongings and start nearly from scratch, finding food, water and shelter. Now, with no fuel entering, transportation is even more difficult, so many are fleeing with almost nothing.

"With each displacement, we’re tortured a thousand times," Suliman said. He and his family found an apartment to rent in the central town of Deir al-Balah. He said they’re struggling, with no electricity and little aid. They must walk long distances to find water.

Fleeing from Rafah on Monday, Hanadi Dahoud said she is struggling to find essentials.

"Where do we go?" she said. "We just want to live. We are tired. There are long queues waiting for bread and charity kitchens."

During the two-month ceasefire that began in mid-January, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flowed back to their neighborhoods. Even if their homes were destroyed, they wanted to be near them — sometimes setting up tents on or next to the rubble.

They had hoped it would be the end of their displacement in a war that has driven nearly the entire population of some 2.3 million from their homes.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in squalid, crowded tent camps or schools-turned-shelters. Most have had to move multiple times to escape fighting and bombardment.

Shelter is limited

Some shelters are so crowded they have had to turn families away, said Shaina Low, communications adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Many families are streaming back to Muwasi, a barren coastal stretch of southern Gaza where, before the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands had been packed into tent cities. During the ceasefire, the camps thinned out as people returned to their neighborhoods. Those returning are finding that tents are scarce; aid groups say they have none to give out because of Israel’s blockade.

More than a million people urgently need tents, while thousands of others require plastic sheets and ropes to strengthen fragile makeshift shelters, Gavin Kelleher, NRC’s humanitarian access manager in Gaza, said at a recent media briefing.

For now, people are cramming into tents or moving into destroyed buildings that are in danger of collapse — trying "to put absolutely anything between themselves and the sky at night," Kelleher said.

Relocating and reinstalling health and nutrition facilities amid declining aid supplies has been "absolutely draining" for families and humanitarian workers, UNICEF's Bollen said.

"Our job would be much easier if we had access to our supplies and if we didn’t have to fear for our own lives at every moment," she said.

Khaled Abu Tair led a donkey cart with some bread and blankets as he and his family fled Khan Younis. He said they were heading "God knows where," and would have to set up on the street a makeshift shelter out of sheets.

"We do not have a place, there are no tents, no places to live or shelter, or anything," he said.

Some can’t bear to move

When orders came to evacuate Gaza City’s Tel Hawa district, Sara Hegy and her mother decided to stay. Their original home in the nearby district of Zaytoun is too destroyed to be livable, and Hegy said she was in despair at the thought of starting over again.

"I had a breakdown the day the war resumed. I didn’t leave the house," said Hegy, who had started an online tutoring job a few days before Israel relaunched its assault.

Others dread the evacuation orders that might come.

Noor Abu Mariam said she and her brother and parents have already been displaced 11 times over the course of the war, moving through tent camps and houses around the south, each time starting over in the search for shelter, food and supplies.

Now back in Gaza City, she can’t do it again, she said.

"I refuse to leave the house no matter the circumstances because I am not psychologically prepared to relive those difficult days I lived in the south," she said.