‘The world has failed us twice’: The Syrians left behind in Lebanon
With scant resources available to help 1.2 million displaced people in Lebanon, tensions are rising and Syrians are a low priority. Abandoned to sleep in the street as Israel’s violent escalation deepens, for many it feels like history repeating itself.
Sidon/ Beirut, Lebanon – A central parking lot in the coastal Lebanese city of Sidon is full. In place of cars and buses, mattresses, blankets, bags of clothes, and nearly 1,000 Syrian refugees fill the empty parking spaces. Many sleep atop the asphalt, its hard surface bone-chilling at night and roasting during the day.
Like thousands of others in the country, most of those here fled their homes in Lebanon’s Nabatieh and South governorates on September 23—when Israel severely escalated its attacks throughout Lebanon, carrying out an intense bombardment campaign on what it says are Hezbollah targets.
“The world has failed us Syrians twice,” 35-year-old Ismail al-Nasser said: first during more than 13 years of conflict in Syria and now during Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.
“Many of us are educated, our place is not on the streets,” al-Nasser told Syria Direct. He and his family had been sleeping in the parking lot for more than two weeks when Syria Direct visited on October 5.
Al-Nasser, who was a history teacher in Syria, fled the capital Damascus for Lebanon in 2015. In Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in south Lebanon, he found work selling vegetables and built a life with his wife and three children. Then, in late September, they were violently uprooted for a second time, this time by Israeli airstrikes.
“I had a house, and I used to work so we could live properly, but now everything is ruined. We’ve ended up on the streets,” al-Nasser said, “I’m helpless in face of the current situation.”