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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP

Sitting by a bed strewn with rubble in Syria's second biggest city, Umm Mounir refuses to leave her home even though the deadly earthquake has torn a gaping hole into the room.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Türkiye and Syria and flattening entire neighborhoods.

The building adjacent to Umm Mounir's collapsed, ripping the rear facade off her own home, but she told AFP that neither natural disasters nor conflict can make her leave.

"Nothing will make me move out of my house except death," said the 55-year-old, who lives by herself on the fourth floor of the heavily damaged seven-story building.

"I will only leave for the grave."

Her city suffered great losses in the February 6 quake that flattened 54 of its buildings and damaged historic sites.

With at least 432 fatalities, Aleppo accounts for nearly a third of all deaths in regime-held parts of Syria, according to state media.

Officials and medics across the war-ravaged country, including in opposition-controlled areas, put the overall Syrian death toll at more than 3,600 people.

"We are people of glory and wealth, but the war changed everything," said Umm Mounir, glancing at the wreckage of her wooden furniture.

"Even in the harshest years of the war we were not displaced," added the woman, whose home in the Masharika neighborhood was near the frontline. "We will not be displaced now."

More than 30 people died in Masharika after the pre-dawn quake brought down two buildings over sleeping residents.

Seemingly incessant aftershocks spooked traumatized survivors, and a 6.4-magnitude tremor on Monday rocked the same areas of Türkiye and Syria.

When the new quake hit, Umm Mounir grabbed her 85-year-old neighbor Amina Raslan, who lives on the first floor, and they rushed out.

"She can't run, so I held her hand and we walked as fast as we could," Umm Mounir said.

Raslan's son, who lives with his mother, said they "got used to the danger because our home used to be on the frontline" where rockets and missiles had rained down.

Puffing a cigarette, 55-year-old Ali al-Bash said he wished they could leave their damaged home, but that "we have nowhere else to go".

Raslan's eyes welled with tears as she recalled the destruction of the home she said her family had lived in for 50 years.

"Everything collapsed," she told AFP as her grandchildren were playing around her.

The family, like many others, did not want to move to a shelter but could not afford to rent a new home, Raslan said.

"I lost two of my children during the war. I don't want to leave my house... I don't want to lose anything else."

Some Aleppo residents, however, have left ravaged homes for tents.

Mohammed Jawish, 63, now lives in a makeshift camp with dozens of families after his building partially collapsed.

"If I still had a house I wouldn't be here," he said, watching his grandchildren -- some of them barefoot in the winter cold -- play with a worn-out football.

Jawish told AFP the quake cost him his belongings and sent him "back to square one".

"My chest feels tight when I'm in this small tent," he said. "I feel I could die from sorrow."

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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

All signs of life have disappeared from the bombed-out houses and empty streets of the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, but despite a fragile Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire that has held since November, no one can return.

The Israeli military is still deployed in parts of Lebanon's south, days ahead of a January 26 deadline to fully implement the terms of the truce.

The deal gave the parties 60 days to withdraw -- Israel back across the border, and Hezbollah farther north -- as the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers redeployed to the south.

The Lebanese military has asked residents of Naqoura not to go back home for their own safety after Israel's army issued similar orders, but in spite of the danger, Mayor Abbas Awada returned to inspect the destruction.

"Naqoura has become a disaster zone of a town... the bare necessities of life are absent here," he said in front of the damaged town hall, adding he was worried a lack of funds after years of economic crisis would hamper reconstruction.

"We need at least three years to rebuild," he continued, as a small bulldozer worked to remove rubble near the municipal offices.

Lebanese soldiers deployed in coastal Naqoura after Israeli troops pulled out of the country's southwest on January 6, though they remain in the southeast.

The Israelis' withdrawal from Naqoura left behind a sea of wreckage.

Opposite the town hall, an old tree has been uprooted. Empty, damaged houses line streets filled with rubble.

Most of the widespread destruction occurred after the truce took hold, Awada said.

"The Israeli army entered the town after the ceasefire" and "destroyed the houses", he said.

"Before the ceasefire, 35 percent of the town was destroyed, but after the truce, 90 percent of it" was demolished, he added, mostly with controlled explosions and bulldozers.

A resident previously displaced because of the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, stands in his damaged home as he returns to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- Smell of death -

Under the November 27 ceasefire deal, which ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.

At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.

Both sides have accused each other of violations since the truce began.

Around the nearby UNIFIL headquarters, houses are still intact, but almost everywhere else in Naqoura lies destruction.

Facades are shorn from bombed-out houses, while others are reduced to crumpled heaps, abandoned by residents who had fled for their lives, leaving behind furniture, clothes and books.

AFP saw a completely destroyed school, banana plantations that had withered away and unharvested oranges on trees, their blossoming flowers barely covering the smell of rotting bodies.

On Tuesday, the civil defense agency said it had recovered two bodies from the rubble in Naqoura.

Lebanese soldiers who patrolled the town found an unexploded rocket between two buildings, AFP saw.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began firing across the border into Israel in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian group launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP that its forces were committed to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

They said the army was working "to remove threats to the State of Israel and its citizens, in full accordance with international law".

UN vehicles drive past debris of damaged buildings in Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- 'We want the wars to end' -

On the coastal road to Naqoura UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have set up checkpoints.

Hezbollah's yellow flags fluttered in the wind, but no fighters could be seen.

Twenty kilometers to the north, in Tyre, Fatima Yazbeck waits impatiently in a reception center for the displaced for her chance to return home.

She fled Naqoura 15 months ago, and since then, "I haven't been back", she said, recounting her sadness at learning her house had been destroyed.

Ali Mehdi, a volunteer at the reception center, said his home was destroyed as well.

"My house was only damaged at first," he said. "But after the truce, the Israelis entered Naqoura and destroyed the houses, the orchards and the roads."

In the next room, Mustafa Al-Sayed has been waiting with his large family for more than a year to return to his southern village of Beit Lif.

He had been forced to leave once before, during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

"Do we have to take our families and flee every 20 years?" he asked. "We want a definitive solution, we want the wars to end."