Objective: Flee Lebanon by land, sea or air

Of the three ways (land, sea and air) to escape the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, Nahida Al Matbuh and her son Ali Haidar Mahdi have chosen the one that seems most counterintuitive: crossing into Syria, a country that has been at war for 13 years. “Here, now, it is more dangerous than there,” explains Haidar Mahdi, 22. Before Tuesday morning they had decided not to leave their small town in the Beqaa Valley, one of the areas most affected by the Israeli offensive, but the explosion of a bomb “very close to home” has brought them to Masnaa, the precarious ― but main ― crossing on the 375-kilometer (233-mile) border between the two countries. “My hand still shakes when I remember it. Do you see? […] Syria, I think, is a little, but not much, better than Beqaa,” says Nahida.

It was not a deliberate choice, nor one with many alternatives. Rather, these are people who have never had a passport and are fleeing to where their community, the Shia, is heading. “We have relatives in Canada and we have thought about going there, but we have never asked for a passport. And now there is no time for that,” explains Nahida, surrounded by more suitcases and bags than children.

― When do you expect to be able to return?

― When the situation calms down. I hope that within a week there will be a truce or a ceasefire and we will be able to return home, God willing.

A utility vehicle drives past with 12 family members packed in like sardines. The bag with the mattresses bears the logo of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. Here, hardly anyone travels light.

The Matbuh family picks up their bags and prepares to cross the entrance to Masnaa, which has become a hubbub of vehicles with Syrian or Lebanese license plates since the massive Israeli bombing of September 23, which caused 558 deaths. Some carry suitcases, mattresses and blankets tied to the roof. The shared vans unload children, adults, and the elderly from time to time.

Their choice is not at all unusual, judging by the figures. The line between safety and danger on either side of Masnaa has blurred so much in recent days that almost 180,000 people have crossed in just one week. On September 23 alone, it is estimated that some 5,000 Lebanese families passed through the border post.

More than 52,000 of those people are Lebanese citizens, according to Syria’s General Directorate of Migration and Passports. Almost all of them were Shia, who were taken in by local Syrian committees affiliated with the Lebanese Shia party-militia Hezbollah (which fights alongside the forces of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad) or who passed through the country to reach Iraq (where there is a Shia Muslim majority), which has just lifted the passport requirement for Lebanese to enter the country.

They now only need their ID cards, and Zeina and her son, Ali Daher, are using this to make a virtue out of necessity. They complain that they have just paid $100 each and that they still have many hours of road travel ahead to reach Iraq, but they seem happy to be able to visit a city as sacred and important to the Shia as Kerbala. “We have been told that there are reception centers there, and that everything is organized. And here the situation is getting worse. We are leaving until everything calms down.” Clenching her fist in solidarity with the resistance that Hezbollah represents, she adds: “And we return victorious.”

The other 125,000 are Syrian refugees who have returned to their country, retracing the path they took after the outbreak of war in 2011, when Lebanon seemed a safer place. The elderly Amina was added to the list on Tuesday, sad and without any great hope for the future. “We left our home in Syria under the bombs and we don’t want to relive it here now. It is very humiliating for me to live through the same horrors here and there,” she says.

After seven years in Lebanon, Amina still has a house in Syria to return to (many have been destroyed or handed over by the regime), but she knows from neighbours that it has been looted. “They have left nothing. We will arrive and there will be no furniture, no water, no electricity,” she laments. Is it better than Lebanon then? “Well… It seems that in the area we are going to there are not many attacks now. And here the children are afraid. Not only of the bombings, but also of the sonic booms,” she says, referring to when Israeli fighter planes cause a roar as they fly overhead, breaking the speed of sound.

Others are not leaving out of fear, but for money. Qais Abdesalam, an 18-year-old Syrian, has not been paid for two weeks because he worked for a cleaning company in Dahiye, the southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah has its stronghold and that Israel bombs daily. The company has stopped operating and Abdesalam, unable to pay the rent, is carrying a thousand boxes and a gas stove with the help of his sister to try his luck again in his homeland, he explains without drama: “In Damascus, where I will go, sometimes there is something, but little else. Today, Lebanon is more dangerous.”

The other border: Israel

Lebanon shares a border with only one other country: Israel. The same country that has launched an offensive against its northern neighbor. It would not be possible to cross under any other circumstances. The two countries have no diplomatic relations and no official border, so those who are escaping from Lebanon have two other options: air and sea.

The first has become essentially mission impossible. In the past two weeks, since the Israeli Mossad intelligence services detonated thousands of Hezbollah-ordered pagers and walkie-talkies, international airlines have cancelled or extended the suspension of many routes to Beirut and Tel Aviv, just as demand for more flights was soaring. The result: there are no tickets left to leave Lebanon over the next few days, or up to two weeks, depending on the destination, according to those who have tried to buy them.

The electronic departure board at the capital’s airport seems more like North Korea than a country with a tourist tradition and a large diaspora. Except for the odd flight by Iraqi or Tunisian companies, all flights are operated by the Lebanese flag carrier, Middle East Airlines, which has barely reduced its number of landings and takeoffs.

One of those flights last Saturday left an iconic image, captured by chance by the cameras of Al Jazeera television. While a fireball rose over Dahiye — caused by one of the 40 bombs of up to a ton that Israel dropped to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — a plane continued toward the runway, a few kilometres away. Dahiye is located between the city and the airport.

Added to this is the pressure from foreigners and Lebanese citizens with dual passports. Canada, for example, has reserved 800 seats on commercial flights for its nationals. Other Western countries, such as the United States, France and Spain, are encouraging their citizens to leave immediately, now that commercial flights are available.

Different profiles

Almost everyone leaving Lebanon is doing so for the same reason, the Israeli bombings, but with very different budgets and profiles. In the marina of Dbayeh, north of Beirut, the flight is not exactly organised by Hezbollah, nor are cheap bags made in China seen, nor is an identity document enough to secure passage. Faced with difficulties to fly out, hundreds of Lebanese or dual nationals with money, passports, and Schengen visas are paying between $1,200 and $1,500 to reach Cyprus by yacht, says a skipper who prefers not to be identified.

His pleasure boat can accommodate 10 people, who share the cost of the $15,000 trip. It is usually organised by captains who pass clients from one to another. He owns one of 12 boats that leave Dbayeh port on demand every day for Cyprus, an EU member state. “I don’t normally make this kind of trip, but I’m getting a lot of requests for it,” he explains. In total, he estimates, some 400 people have escaped via this route.

Today there are no passengers, because the sea is too rough for the journey, but the ship has been in demand since September 23, when Israel caused the deadliest day in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990 and requests soared. The ship was their plan B: Plan A was the airport, but there was no way to fly and no time to waste.

Georges, 39, works in the United Arab Emirates but was in Beirut on a sabbatical and saw how the situation was deteriorating. He had already bought an airline ticket for October 6, but it seemed too “risky” to stay until then. “I was not only worried about the war, but also about the internal social situation […] The flights were taking a long time to leave. I decided to get out before it escalated,” he says.

With no available flights in the near future, but with a Schengen visa in his passport, he opted for the boat to Cyprus. From there, he flew to Armenia, where his parents had been for weeks and where his origins are. “Some friends told me that all the boats were leaving the marina and I saw that I had three or four options, so I made the decision. It was the most comfortable solution.”

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