Beirut, Lebanon – In 2014, the Syrian regime fired a missile targeting Alaa’s residential complex in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Thirteen-year-old Alaa and her family, a mother, father and two children, survived the explosion and fled to Lebanon.
Today, Alaa heads to Beirut and fears another war as tensions escalate between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel.
“The war affects everyone here: Lebanese and Syrians,” Alaa told Al Jazeera outside a barbershop in Hamra, a crowded neighbourhood in western Beirut. “It happens, it happens. I live day by day.”
Alaa, there are two thousand refugees and migrants who will find refuge in Lebanon, its landscape that has been ravaged by war for a long time. Most of them remain secretive and try to live a miserable life.
Several Syrian and Sudanese citizens told Al Jazeera that they realise that Lebanon could soon become the scene of a wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
But now many seem resigned to the future. Others fear that, as refugees, their chances of finding safety are less than those of Lebanese citizens and migrant workers from other countries.
“I don’t intend to stop Syria (where there is still conflict) if a big war breaks out here,” Alaa told Al Jazeera. “At first I will try to go to the mountains, where my country is.”
“We don't have to trust”
Regional tensions will increase after Israel Assassination of prominent Hezbollah leader Fouad Shaker on July 30 In the suburb, a crowded residential neighborhood in Beirut.
After hours, or Hamas o Death of political leader Ismail Haniyeh In the Iranian capital, Tira, where he attended the inauguration ceremony of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Israel neither denied nor claimed responsibility for the assassinations, but US and Iranian authorities said Israel was behind the attacks.
The assassinations cast a dark cloud over Lebanon and its people, including the Syrian and Sudanese cities that had taken refuge there. Since then, Israel has intensified its air strikes on southern Lebanon, leading to an increase in the number of civilian casualties.
Most recently, on August 17, an Israeli airstrike killed Syrians and destroyed a Sudanese town in Nabatieh, a city in southern Lebanon.
Bukhari Yousef, a 28-year-old Sudanese national, fears that Beirut will soon be destroyed by war. Since 2017, he has worked as a fax machine to enable him to send several hundred dollars a month to his family through an informal money transfer system. He says they need this money to survive, and it is the only reason he remains in Lebanon.
His family lives precariously in El Obeid, not in Sudaw, a city controlled by the Sudanese army but besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, as the two sides fight for control of the country.
“If it’s too crowded here, I’d rather go home,” Bahri said. “Here in Lebanon we have nothing to trust. But I don’t know how to support my family and they can trust me.”
Enimigo Shared
Most of the Syrians who spoke to Al Jazeera said they had no intention of attacking their country, even as Lebanon entered the conflict.
Moetus Sao Half of them are recruited into the Syrian army. To fight on the front lines of the civil war that broke out in 2012, after the government violently suppressed peaceful protests.
It draws the world’s attention to the fact that Syria has been transformed, but there is no safer place around. Many Syrians say they have been persecuted by the regime for their real or perceived opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohammad, 33, who donated a small laundry in Beirut, told Al Jazeera he could not imagine leaving Lebanon after rebuilding his life here.
He said he was in fact one of two Syrians who might consider fighting Israel before returning to Syria.
“If Israel invades, I say many Syrians in Lebanon will attack them with weapons and kill them,” Mohammed said. “We would rather fight against Israel than return home to fight against us.”
Alem disso, Mohamad disse attributes it or The rise of Syrian racism The situation facing Lebanon will prevent the outbreak of war.
He says everyone knows that Israel will not discriminate against killings.
“There will be no racism as there is now. Israel and Enemigo are two Lebanese and Enemigo are two Syrians. We have the same similarities… That's why we all feel it's time to support each other for a few years and stay together,” he said.
Run away
Lebanon is not an ideal situation for many Syrians who see the only possibility as trying to go to Europe, Mohammed added.
While Lebanon is going through a major economic crisis, in addition to the threat of war, thousands of Syrians are entering Syria informally and paying money to smugglers to take them to Turkey.
As of today, Syrians are paying smugglers to take them to Greece or Cyprus, Mohammed said.
“A week ago, many Syrians I know went back to Syria to try to go to Turkey. We want to go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.
Sayed Ibrahim Ahmed, a man who heads the Sudanese Club in Beirut, said he feared he would be arrested in Lebanon if Israel started bombing the entire country.
He says Lebanese citizens can try to flee to Syria or Jordan, but refugees and migrants from South Africa and other countries have little chance of escaping, and believes trying to flee to Europe is too dangerous.
“Most of the people who are trying to go to Europe are trying to return to Lebanon or Africa,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed, who first left Lebanon in 2000 to work as a chef, has lived most of his adult life in Beirut. He supports his four children with his sweaty wife and simply cannot imagine dying in a place where he would last a long time with his family and home.
“There is no Lebanon or Sudan, Vicari is a prisoner of Numa Guerra,” he said. “But if I die, I prefer to die in my country.”
