Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’

Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’
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Children displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon by clashes on the border with Israel play soccer at an abandoned hotel being used as a shelter in the southern town of Marwanieh on Mar. 15, 2024. (AP)
Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’
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Residents displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon by clashes on the border with Israel eat during the Muslim’s holy fasting month of Ramadan, at an abandoned hotel being used as a shelter in the southern town of Marwanieh, Lebanon, on Mar. 15, 2024. (AP)
Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’
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Residents displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon by clashes on the border with Israel prepare a communal Iftar meal for people to break their fast during Ramadan at an abandoned hotel being used as a shelter in the southern town of Marwanieh, on Mar. 15, 2024. (AP)
Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’
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Roughly 60 families who have been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon by clashes along the country’s border with Israel are sheltering at the former hotel and celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan there. (AP)
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Updated 24 March 2024
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Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’

Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’
  • Those living at the Hotel Montana, which went out of business in 2005, are among an estimated 90,000 people from southern Lebanon who have been displaced
  • Israeli strikes have killed more than 300 people in Lebanon

MARWANIEH, Lebanon: Shortly before sunset on a recent evening, Mervat Reslan and a group of other women made french fries in vats of boiling oil to serve with that night’s iftar — the meal that breaks the daily fasts Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan.
They belong to roughly 60 families who have been sheltering at an abandoned hotel in the southern Lebanon town of Marwanieh to escape the shelling and airstrikes that have made it too dangerous to stay in their homes in the country’s border region with Israel. Although they’ve become a family of sorts to one another, many long to return home.
“Especially during Ramadan, you start thinking that your house is better — that you and your family all used to gather together, your children and their children, your in-laws and neighbors. And now you’re sitting by yourself in a room,” said Reslan.
Those living at the Hotel Montana, which went out of business in 2005, are among an estimated 90,000 people from southern Lebanon who have been displaced by the near-daily clashes between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces. Another 60,000 Lebanese civilians have decided to stay in the border zone and risk the danger, according to a United Nations agency.

FASTFACT

The border clashes began with a few Hezbollah rockets fired across the frontier on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’ deadly incursion into southern Israel and Israel’s ensuing bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The border clashes began with a few Hezbollah rockets fired across the frontier on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’ deadly incursion into southern Israel and Israel’s ensuing bombardment of the Gaza Strip. They quickly escalated to near-daily exchanges of rockets, shelling and airstrikes across the border and sometimes beyond.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 300 people in Lebanon. Most were militants from Hezbollah or allied groups, but more than 40 were civilians. Hezbollah strikes, meanwhile, have killed at least eight Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers, and displaced tens of thousands on that side of the border.
The cross-border attacks seem unlikely to end before a ceasefire is reached in Gaza — and possibly not even then. The prolonged state of limited conflict has left Lebanon, and particularly the displaced families, in limbo. School, work and farming in Lebanon’s border region have been put on hold. For a while, many hoped that a ceasefire would coincide with the start of Ramadan, but half of the holy month has passed without clear prospects for a solution.
Most of the displaced Lebanese have moved in with relatives or found shelter in vacant houses or rooms offered up by residents farther north. Those with the means have relocated to their second homes or rented apartments.
Shelters like the Hotel Montana are a last resort.
“A person can deal with 10, 15, 20 days, a month (of displacement), but we’re now entering the sixth month and it looks like it will go on longer,” said Ali Mattar, who heads the union of municipalities for the Sahel Al-Zahrani region, which includes Marwanieh.
The cash-strapped municipalities have been given much of the responsibility for dealing with the displacement, a task made more difficult by the four years of economic crisis the country has faced.
The Lebanese government has promised to compensate residents of the south whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. But the funding hasn’t been secured, said Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kheir, who heads the country’s Higher Relief Committee. A comprehensive survey hasn’t been conducted to assess how many houses are damaged, though it is “in the thousands,” he said.
Hezbollah has been providing monthly payments to many of the displaced families, an official with knowledge of the situation said. The official, who was not allowed to brief journalists and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not give a precise amount, saying it depends on a family’s size and needs.
Local and international nongovernmental organizations and religious charities have taken up much of the slack, but their resources are also strained. At the Hotel Montana, for instance, the Red Cross provides diesel to run a generator, but it can only be run for two hours in the morning and five in the evening because the supply is limited, said Salam Badreddine, who oversees disaster management for the union of municipalities.
The US and France, among other countries, have engaged in diplomatic missions to try to prevent the border conflict from escalating into full-scale war. But even if they succeed, some fear that a continuous state of low-level conflict could become the new normal.
“I think the risk of an all-out war still exists, and I would argue that it’s high,” said Emile Hokayem, director of regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. But there is also a potential for a long-term simmering conflict that would “exhaust” the struggling Lebanese economy and society, he said.
“What I worry about is this ability to rationalize levels of violence and adjust to them, and (to think that) as long as we’ve avoided the big one, we’re fine,” he said.
Reslan said her family was briefly displaced during the brutal monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, but this time feels different. Shelling has already damaged her family’s house, and she is afraid that the extended displacement will become permanent.
“We’re afraid — not of Israel but that we won’t return to our houses and villages. That’s the only thing we’re afraid of,” she said.
Mohammed Issa, a construction worker and farmer, fled the village of Aitaroun with his wife and three children on Oct. 8, when shells began falling next to his house. They stayed for two months with another family before moving to the Hotel Montana. Now he’s counting the days until they can go home.
“If there’s a ceasefire, we’ll be on the highway and at our house within an hour,” he said.
When displaced families do finally return home, they could face the grim reality of damaged homes, burned fields and a lack of resources to help, said Jasmin Lilian Diab, director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University.
“It is not so much a conversation of whether or not they will eventually be able to go back, but what are they going back to,” she said.


What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria's 13-year war and why it matters

What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria's 13-year war and why it matters
Updated 21 sec ago
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What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria's 13-year war and why it matters

What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria's 13-year war and why it matters
  • It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when an air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city
  • The roughly 30 percent of the country not under Assad is controlled by a range of opposition forces and foreign troops, including Turkish and US forces and their allies

WASHINGTON: The 13-year civil war in Syria has roared back into prominence with a surprise rebel offensive on Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities and an ancient business hub. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years in a war whose destabilizing effects have rippled far beyond the country’s borders.
It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70 percent of Syria under his control.
The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when US-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Robert Ford, the last-serving US ambassador to Syria, pointed to months of Israeli strikes on Syrian and Hezbollah targets in the area, and to Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon this week, as factors providing Syria’s rebels with the opportunity to advance.
Here’s a look at some of the key aspects of the new fighting:
Why does the fighting at Aleppo matter?
Assad has been at war with opposition forces seeking his overthrow for 13 years, a conflict that’s killed an estimated half-million people. Some 6.8 million Syrians have fled the country, a refugee flow that helped change the political map in Europe by fueling anti-immigrant far-right movements.
The roughly 30 percent of the country not under Assad is controlled by a range of opposition forces and foreign troops. The US has about 900 troops in northeast Syria, far from Aleppo, to guard against a resurgence by the Daesh group. Both the US and Israel conduct occasional strikes in

Syria against government forces and Iran-allied militias. Turkiye has forces in Syria as well, and has influence with the broad alliance of opposition forces storming Aleppo.
Coming after years with few sizeable changes in territory between Syria’s warring parties, the fighting “has the potential to be really quite, quite consequential and potentially game-changing,” if Syrian government forces prove unable to hold their ground, said Charles Lister, a longtime Syria analyst with the US-based Middle East Institute. Risks include if Daesh fighters see it as an opening, Lister said.
Ford said the fighting in Aleppo would become more broadly destabilizing if it drew Russia and Turkiye — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct heavy fighting against each other. 

The US and UN have long designated the opposition force leading the attack at Aleppo — Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, known by its initials HTS — as a terrorist organization.
Its leader, Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, emerged as the leader of Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch in 2011, in the first months of Syria’s war. His fight was an unwelcome intervention to many in Syria’s opposition, who hoped to keep the fight against Assad’s brutal rule untainted by violent extremism.
Golani early on claimed responsibility for deadly bombings, pledged to attack Western forces and sent religious police to enforce modest dress by women.
Golani has sought to remake himself in recent years. He renounced his Al-Qaeda ties in 2016. He’s disbanded his religious police force, cracked down on extremist groups in his territory, and portrayed himself as a protector of other religions. That includes last year allowing the first Christian Mass in the city of Idlib in years.
What’s the history of Aleppo in the war?
At the crossroads of trade routes and empires for thousands of years, Aleppo is one of the centers of commerce and culture in the Middle East.
Aleppo was home to 2.3 million people before the war. Rebels seized the east side of the city in 2012, and it became the proudest symbol of the advance of armed opposition factions.
In 2016, government forces backed by Russian airstrikes laid siege to the city. Russian shells, missiles and crude barrel bombs — fuel canisters or other containers loaded with explosives and metal — methodically leveled neighborhoods. Starving and under siege, rebels surrendered Aleppo that year.
The Russian military’s entry was the turning point in the war, allowing Assad to stay on in the territory he held.
This year, Israeli airstrikes in Aleppo have hit Hezbollah weapons depots and Syrian forces, among other targets, according to an independent monitoring group. Israel rarely acknowledges strikes at Aleppo and other government-held areas of Syria.


Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights, military source says

Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights, military source says
Updated 22 min 40 sec ago
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Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights, military source says

Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights, military source says

AMMAN: Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights, a military source told Reuters early on Saturday as Syrian rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad said on Friday they had reached the heart of the northern city of Aleppo.

 


2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports

2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports
Updated 30 November 2024
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2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports

2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports
  • Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants
  • Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing

TUNIS: Two unidentified bodies were recovered off Tunisia’s eastern coast after a migrant boat capsized, local media reported on Friday, with one person still missing and 28 rescued.
Most of the passengers were Tunisian, according to the reports, which said that the boat had set sail from Teboulba, a coastal town some 180 kilometers south of the capital Tunis.
Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing. Italy, whose Lampedusa Island is only 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tunisia, is often their first port of call.
In late October, the bodies of 15 people believed to be migrants were recovered by authorities in Monastir, eastern Tunisia.
And in late September, 36 would-be migrants — mainly Tunisians — were rescued off Bizerte in northern Tunisia.
Since January 1, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized and 341 bodies have been recovered off Tunisia’s coast, according to the interior ministry.
More than 1,300 people died or disappeared last year in shipwrecks off the North African country, according to the Tunisian FTDES rights group.
The International Organization for Migration has said that more than 30,309 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.


Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers

An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 30 November 2024
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Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers

An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
  • The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers

KARBALA: Rami, a Syrian worker in Iraq, spends his 16-hour shifts at a restaurant fearing arrest as authorities crack down on undocumented migrants in the country better known for its own exodus.
He is one of hundreds of thousands of foreigners working without permits in Iraq, which, after emerging from decades of conflict, has become an unexpected destination for many seeking opportunities.
“I’ve been able to avoid the security forces and checkpoints,” said the 27-year-old, who has lived in Iraq for seven years and asked that AFP use a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Between 10 in the morning and 2 a.m. the next day, he toils at a shawarma shop in the holy city of Karbala, where millions of pilgrims congregate every year.
“My greatest fear is to be expelled back to Syria, where I’d have to do military service,” he said.

BACKGROUND

Authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the dominant hydrocarbons sector.

The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers.
Now, the authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the currently dominant hydrocarbons sector.
Many, like Rami, work in the service industry in Iraq.
One Baghdad restaurant owner admitted that he has to play cat and mouse with the authorities during inspections, asking some employees to make themselves scarce.
He said that not all those who work for him are registered because of the costly fees involved.
Some of the undocumented workers in Iraq first came as pilgrims. In July, Labour Minister Ahmed Assadi said his services investigated information that “50,000 Pakistani visitors” stayed on “to work illegally.”
Despite threats of expulsion because of the scale of the issue, the authorities, at the end of November, launched a scheme for “Syrian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani workers” to regularize their employment by applying online before Dec. 25.
The ministry says it will take legal action against anyone who brings in or employs undocumented foreign workers.
Rami has decided to play safe, even though “I want” to acquire legal employment status.
“But I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m waiting to see what my friends do, and then I’ll do the same.”
Current Iraqi law caps the number of foreign workers a company can employ at 50 percent, but the authorities now want to lower this to 30 percent.
“Today we only allow qualified workers for jobs requiring skills” that are not currently available, Labor Ministry spokesman Nijm Al-Aqabi said.
It’s a sensitive issue — for the past two decades, even a foreign workforce has dominated the robust oil sector. But now the authorities are seeking to favor Iraqis.
“There are large companies contracted to the government” which have been asked to limit “foreign worker numbers to 30 percent,” said Aqabi.
“This is in the interests of the domestic labor market,” he said, as 1.6 million Iraqis are unemployed.
He recognized that each household has the right to employ a foreign domestic worker, claiming this was work Iraqis did not want to do.
One agency launched in 2021 that brings in domestic workers from Niger, Ghana, and Ethiopia confirms the high demand.
“Before, we used to bring in 40 women, but now it’s around 100” a year, said an employee at the agency.
The employee said it was a trend picked up from rich countries in the Gulf.
“The situation in Iraq is getting better, and with higher salaries, Iraqi homeowners are looking for comfort.”
A domestic worker earns about $230 a month, but the authorities have quintupled the registration fee, with a work permit now costing more than $800.
In the summer, Human Rights Watch denounced what it called a campaign of arbitrary arrests and expulsions targeting Syrians, even those with the necessary paperwork.
HRW said that raids targeted both homes and workplaces.
Ahmed — another pseudonym — is a 31-year-old Syrian who has been undocumented in Iraq for the past year and a half.
He began as a cook in Baghdad and later moved to Karbala.
“Life is hard here — we don’t have any rights,” he said
“We come in illegally, and the security forces are after us.”
His wife did not accompany him. She stayed in Syria.
“I’d go back if I could,” said Ahmed. “But life there is very difficult. There’s no work.”

 


Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood

Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood
Updated 29 November 2024
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Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood

Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood
  • Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong base of support

BAALBEK, Lebanon: In eastern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek, the Jawhari family gathered around a gaping crater where their home once stood, tears streaming as they tried to make sense of the destruction.
“It is heart-breaking. A heartache that there is no way we will ever recover from,” said Lina Jawhari, her voice breaking as she hugged relatives who came to support the family.
“Our world turned upside down in a second.”
The home, which was a gathering place for generations, was reduced to rubble by an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 1, leaving behind shattered memories and twisted fragments of a once-vibrant life.
The family, like thousands of Lebanese, were returning to check on their properties after the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect early Wednesday.

BACKGROUND

Israeli airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across Lebanon.

Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across the country.
A photo of the Jawhari family’s home — taken on a phone by Louay Mustafa, Lina’s nephew — is a visual reminder of what had been. As the family sifted through the rubble, each fragment recovered called them to gather around it.
A worn letter sparked a collective cheer, while a photo of their late father triggered sobs. Reda Jawhari had built the house for his family and was a craftsman who left behind a legacy of metalwork. The sisters cried and hoped to find a piece of the mosque-church structure built by their father. Minutes later, they lifted a mangled piece of metal from the debris. They clung to it, determined to preserve a piece of his legacy.
“Different generations were raised with love ... Our life was filled with music, dance, and dabke (traditional dance). This is what the house is made up of. And suddenly, they destroyed our world. Our world turned upside down in a second. It is inconceivable. It is inconceivable,” Lina said.
Despite their determination, the pain of losing their home and the memories tied to it remains raw.
Rouba Jawhari, one of four sisters, had one regret.
“We are sad we did not take my mom and dad’s photos with us. If only we took the photos,” she said, clutching an ID card and a bag of photos and letters recovered from the rubble.
“It didn’t cross our mind. We thought it was two weeks and we will be back.”
The airstrike that obliterated the Jawhari home came without warning, striking at 1:30 p.m. on what was otherwise an ordinary Friday.
Their neighbor, Ali Wehbe, also lost his home. He had stepped out for food a few minutes before the missile hit and rushed back to find his brother searching for him under the rubble.
“Every brick holds a memory,” he said, gesturing to his library.
“Under every book you would find a story.”