Beirut, Lebanon – In 2014, the Syrian regime fired a missile that struck Alaa’s condominium constructing in Aleppo, Syria. 13-year-old Alaa and his household – mom, father and two sisters – survived the blast and fled to Lebanon.
In the present day, Alaa is a hairdresser in Beirut and worries about having to undergo one other conflict as tensions rise between the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel.
“A conflict would have an effect on everybody right here: Lebanese and Syrian,” Alaa advised Al Jazeera exterior a barbershop in Hamra, a bustling neighbourhood in West Beirut. “If it occurs, it occurs. I reside daily.”
Alaa is one in every of tens of millions of refugees and migrants who’ve discovered a haven in Lebanon, removed from their war-torn homelands. Most maintain a low profile and attempt to eke out a meagre residing.
A number of Syrian and Sudanese nationals advised Al Jazeera they’re conscious that Lebanon may quickly be the theatre of a wider battle between Israel and Hezbollah.
However whereas many appear resigned concerning the future. others fear that, as refugees, they may have fewer alternatives to search out security in contrast with Lebanese nationals and migrant staff from different nations.
“I wouldn’t return to Syria [where there is still conflict] if a giant conflict occurred right here,” Alaa advised Al Jazeera. “I might first attempt to go to the mountains, the place my mother and father are.”
‘No one to depend on’
Regional tensions escalated after Israel assassinated senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shakr on July 30 in Dahiya, a bustling residential neighbourhood in Beirut.
Hours later, Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran’s capital Tehran, the place he was attending President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
Israel neither denied nor claimed accountability for the assassinations, however United States officers and Iran stated Israel was behind the assaults.
The assassinations forged a darkish cloud over Lebanon and its inhabitants, together with the Syrians and Sudanese nationals looking for refuge there. Since then, Israel has stepped up airstrikes on southern Lebanon, resulting in a spike in civilian causalities.
Most not too long ago, on August 17, an Israeli airstrike killed ten Syrians and injured a Sudanese citizen in Nabatiyeh, a city in south Lebanon.
Bakhri Yousef, a 28-year-old Sudanese nationwide, worries that the conflict could quickly attain Beirut. Since 2017, he has labored as a cleaner so he can ship his household a few hundred {dollars} a month by way of a casual cash switch system. They want this cash to outlive, he says, and it’s the solely motive he stays in Lebanon.
His household lives precariously in el-Obeid, Sudan, a metropolis managed by the Sudanese military however below siege by the Fast Assist Forces (RSF) paramilitary as the 2 sides interact in a conflict to regulate the nation.
“If the state of affairs received actually dangerous right here, then I might quite go house,” Bakhri stated. “Right here in Lebanon, I’ve no one to depend on. However in Sudan, I can depend on my household they usually can depend on me.”
Shared enemy
Most Syrians who spoke to Al Jazeera stated they might not return to their nation even when Lebanon spirals into battle.
Many are afraid of being conscripted into the Syrian military to struggle on the entrance traces of a civil conflict that erupted in 2012, after the federal government violently suppressed peaceable protests.
Whereas the world’s consideration has moved on from Syria, that has not made it safer. Many Syrians say they’re wished by the regime for his or her actual or perceived opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohamad, 33, who owns a small laundromat in Beirut, advised Al Jazeera he can not think about leaving Lebanon after rebuilding his life right here.
Actually, he stated, he’s one in every of many Syrians who would take into account preventing towards Israel earlier than returning to Syria.
“If Israel invades, I’m telling you that many Syrians in Lebanon would choose up arms and struggle towards them,” Mohamad stated. “We would favor preventing towards Israel than returning house to struggle towards our folks.”
As well as, Mohamad stated he believes the mounting racism Syrians face in Lebanon would grind to a halt if a conflict broke out.
Everyone, he says, would know Israel is not going to discriminate between who it kills.
“There gained’t be any racism like there may be now. Israel is the enemy of the Lebanese and the enemy of Syrians. We’ve the identical enemy … and that’s why everybody feels that now’s the time for us to help one another and stick collectively,” he stated.
Fleeing
However Lebanon will not be the perfect state of affairs for a lot of Syrians who see their solely probability as attempting to get to Europe, Mohamad added.
With Lebanon already experiencing a big financial disaster along with the specter of conflict, 1000’s of Syrians are getting into Syria informally and paying smugglers to whisk them to Turkey.
From there, Mohamad stated, Syrians pay smugglers to take them to Greece or Cyprus.
“From even every week in the past, so many Syrians that I knew have returned to Syria to attempt to attain Turkey. They need to attain Europe,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Sayed Ibrahim Ahmad, a person who runs the Sudanese membership in Beirut, stated he fears being trapped in Lebanon if Israel begins bombing your entire nation.
He stated that Lebanese nationals can attempt to escape to Syria or Jordan, however refugees and migrants from Sudan and different nations can have little means to flee and he believes attempting to flee to Europe is just too harmful.
“Most people that attempt to go to Europe both are pulled again to Lebanon or drown,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Ahmad, who first got here to Lebanon in 2000 to work as a chef, has lived most of his grownup life in Beirut. He helps his 4 kids and spouse in Sudan and easily can not think about dying in a spot so far-off from his household and residential.
“Whether or not in Lebanon or Sudan, I’ll be trapped in a conflict,” he stated. “But when I’m to die, then I would favor to die in my nation.”
