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"Lebanon's authorities must stop summarily deporting refugees to a place where they are at risk of violations, lift restrictions, and end their vitriolic campaign against refugees," said one Amnesty campaigner.
Amnesty International on Monday reiterated human rights groups' rising concerns about a Lebanese crackdown on Syrian refugees as the European Union hosted a conference in Brussels focused on "supporting the future of Syria and the region."
The conference comes at right-wing leaders in the E.U. campaign as anti-migrant ahead of the bloc's June elections and after European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen in early May announced a three-year, €1 billion ($1.06 billion) assistance package to support "the most vulnerable people in Lebanon, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and host communities," as well as "urgent domestic reforms" and "border and migration management."
The package was seen as part of the E.U.'s efforts to limit migration to Europe, as refugees leave Lebanon and try to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Cyprus and Italy—journeys that often involve crowded, unsafe vessels and lead to deaths.
"Once again, President Von Der Leyen has put her desire to curb the flow of refugees at any cost into Europe before the E.U.'s obligations to protect refugees fleeing conflict or persecution," Aya Majzoub, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday.
"This appears to have emboldened Lebanese authorities to intensify their ruthless campaign targeting refugees with hateful discourse, forced deportations, and stifling measures on residency and labor," she continued. "Yet, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita and has struggled to assist refugees amid an acute economic crisis."
"I swear if there is a safe zone in Syria, I would've been the first to return... The regime isn't safe for us."
Less than a week after the E.U. aid package was revealed, Amnesty explained, "the Lebanese General Security announced sweeping new measures against Syrian refugees including restrictions on their ability to obtain residency permits and work in the country, and has stepped up raids, collective evictions, arrests, and deportations."
Rights groups in the region and around the world have condemned the Lebanese moves and stressed that they, along with the United Nations and E.U., have concluded that Syria remains unsafe for refugees—a sentiment echoed by displaced Syrians.
"I swear if there is a safe zone in Syria, I would've been the first to return! Safe, as in not under the control of the [Syrian] regime. The regime isn't safe for us," one Syrian mother told Amnesty, referring to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
"Many like us, if they're granted the capacity to return to the regions not controlled by the regime, they run back, without the need for organized return trips! If I had 1% hope that my husband and I will be safe upon return, I swear we wouldn't stay in such harsh conditions here," added the mother, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
Alia, another Syrian mother now living in Lebanon, told the BBC that "we live in constant fear and anxiety... Every evening when my son comes back home, his youngest brother hugs him—relieved that he hasn't been arrested."
"I started overhearing people at places like the supermarket or the street saying: 'Look at the Syrians. They are living the good life while we can't afford anything in our own country,'" Alia said. "If only they knew what kind of life we live."
Amnesty's Majzoub argued Monday that "as a show of solidarity, European states should increase the number of resettlements to European countries of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon."
"Donors at the annual humanitarian conference for Syria and refugee host countries must press the Lebanese authorities to immediately cease their unprecedented crackdown on Syrian refugees and lift abusive measures aimed at pressuring them to leave the country despite the well-documented risks they could face upon their return," she said.
"Human rights organizations unanimously agree: No part of Syria is safe for refugee returns," Majzoub added. "Lebanon's authorities must stop summarily deporting refugees to a place where they are at risk of violations, lift restrictions, and end their vitriolic campaign against refugees. E.U. countries similarly have a legal and moral obligation to refrain from forcibly turning back boats carrying migrants to Lebanon."
Over the past 13 years, Syria's civil war has forced millions to flee their homes. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that as of March, 7.2 million Syrians were internally displaced and over five million had fled to countries including Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan.
"We're going to be sending a very clear message from Jordan as a host country that we feel that refugees are being abandoned," the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told reporters while arriving in Brussels for the conference, according toReuters. "Host countries are being abandoned."
With wars raging in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip, U.N. agencies and international humanitarian groups are also stretched thin and having a hard time providing adequate assistance to civilians within Syria. As The Associated Pressreported Sunday:
Living in a tent in rebel-held northwestern Syria, Rudaina al-Salim and her family struggle to find enough water for drinking and other basic needs such as cooking and washing. Their encampment north of the city of Idlib hasn't seen any aid in six months.
"We used to get food aid, hygiene items," said the mother of four. "Now we haven't had much in a while."
"We have moved from assisting 5.5 million a year to about 1.5 million people in Syria," Carl Skau, the U.N. World Food Program's deputy executive director, told the AP. "When I look across the world, this is the (aid) program that has shrunk the most in the shortest period for time."
"Biden is airdropping food (expensive, inefficient, potentially dangerous) because he won't condition massive U.S. military aid and arms sales on Israel ending its obstruction of most ground aid deliveries."
The U.S. military on Saturday executed the first of what's expected to be a series of humanitarian aid airdrops into the Gaza Strip, parachuting packages containing 38,000 meals to the besieged enclave's coastline as the territory's entire population—roughly 2.2 million people—faces the
imminent threat of starvation due to Israel's ongoing assault and blockade.
The airdrop, coordinated with the Jordanian military, came days after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of desperate Gazans near a convoy of aid trucks in the northern part of the territory, which Israel has almost completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
The incident, dubbed the "flour massacre," was just one of more than a dozen documented cases this year of the U.S.-armed Israeli military attacking Gazans gathering to receive food aid and other assistance, according to the United Nations.
Biden administration officials said Saturday that "the aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough and nowhere near fast enough," but the White House has done nothing to force the Israeli government to stop obstructing ground-based deliveries, which have fallen in recent weeks and become virtually impossible in much of the territory because of Israel's restrictions and repeated attacks on aid workers.
Administration officials have dismissed calls to attach conditions to U.S. military assistance to Israel, which has used American weaponry to commit atrocities in the Gaza Strip. The administration is currently preparing to send Israel additional bombs and other weaponry.
"Biden is airdropping food (expensive, inefficient, potentially dangerous) because he won't condition massive U.S. military aid and arms sales on Israel ending its obstruction of most ground aid deliveries," said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch.
On Sunday, following the U.S. airdrop, Israeli forces were accused of striking an aid vehicle in central Gaza, reportedly killing eight people.
(Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)
At least 15 children in Gaza have died from starvation or dehydration in recent days, according to the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.
A top World Food Program official warned last week that "food aid is required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people" and that Gaza is "seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world." The U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, said Israel is deliberately starving Gaza's population, a blatant war crime.
In the face of such a large-scale emergency, critics said the Biden administration's airdrops are nowhere near sufficient.
"Instead of dropping packages from the sky—some of which end up in the sea or outside of Gaza and which the most vulnerable cannot reach in any case—the U.S., the U.K., and others should ensure that Israel immediately opens all crossings into Gaza for aid and aid workers to assist those in need," said Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians.
"This includes the Karni and Erez crossings, which give direct access to the north of Gaza," Ward continued. "Only safe and unfettered access for aid and aid workers, the lifting of the siege, and an immediate cease-fire can end starvation in Gaza."
Dave Harden, a former assistant administrator at the United States Agency for International Development, said in an interview Saturday that airdrops are "inefficient, expensive, and risky."
"Airdropping from 30,000 feet is simply not the solution," said Harden. "And, by the way, it's a little offensive to the United States, too. I mean, Israel is our ally and we're supporting them in a very substantial and meaningful way. And for us not to be able to get aid in to innocent civilians in Gaza is really an indictment both on the Biden administration and the Bibi Netanyahu administration."
"We take seriously our constitutional responsibility over war, peace, and security and we remind the White House that Congress must be involved in and approve of the offensive use of military force."
As Israel wages a U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip widely decried as genocide and the United States reportedly plots strikes on Iranian personnel and facilities in Iraq and Syria, Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders on Thursday sounded the alarm about further escalation in the Middle East.
"Since October, we have seen a steady escalation between varied armed actors and U.S. forces throughout the Middle East," said CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Deputy Chair Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Whip Greg Casar (D-Texas), and Chair Emeritus and Peace and Security Task Force Chair Barbara Lee (D-Calif). "These rising tensions culminated in this past weekend's tragedy, where three U.S. service members were killed and dozens wounded in an Iraq-based militia strike on a U.S. base in Jordan."
"We mourn the loss of these soldiers, as well as the Navy SEALs who were lost earlier this month in a separate Red Sea operation," they continued. "Since October, 165 attacks have injured more than 120 U.S. service members across the region, and repeated U.S. retaliatory strikes in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq have not deterred these armed groups."
"For years... extreme voices have been fixated on closing the door to diplomacy and drawing the United States into direct conflict with Iran."
U.S. strikes in Yemen—notably not authorized by Congress—have come in response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping to protest Israel's war on Gaza. While the Houthis have ties to Iran that U.S. officials often emphasize, as author and Yemen expert Helen Lackner highlighted on Democracy Now! Thursday: "The Houthis are an independent movement. The Houthis are not Iranian proxies. They are not Iranian servants. They don't do what the Iranians tell them to do. They make their own decisions."
American officials have blamed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias including Kata'ib Hezbollah, for the Jordan attack. While the Iranian government has denied involvement in that strike and the Biden administration has admitted that there is no proof it was directed by Tehran, U.S. hawks have been calling for war with Iran this week.
Kata'ib Hezbollah's leader, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, said Tuesday that the group has launched attacks at its "own will, and without any interference from others," but will stop targeting American forces in Iraq to help pave the way for a U.S. withdrawal from the country over two decades after the 2003 invasion. Still, fears of a regional war remain heightened.
Jayapal, Omar, Casar, and Lee warned that the United States is now "facing the most serious threat of regional war" since then-U.S. President Donald Trump—now the GOP front-runner to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election—greenlighted the "reckless and unauthorized" assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani four years ago.
"So it comes as no surprise that congressional Republicans are now irresponsibly pushing direct military confrontation with Iran," the CPC leaders stressed. "For years, these extreme voices have been fixated on closing the door to diplomacy and drawing the United States into direct conflict with Iran."
"The American people have no interest in such a conflict, which would erode our nation's global standing and irreparably damage our national security," they asserted. "As the people's representatives in Congress, we take seriously our constitutional responsibility over war, peace, and security and we remind the White House that Congress must be involved in and approve of the offensive use of military force."
As Common Dreamsreported last week, polling shows a majority of Americans would hold the president responsible if gas prices go up as a result of war in the Middle East—including enough Democratic voters to potentially decide a close election—and half of Biden supporters think Israel, which claims to be targeting Hamas, is committing genocide against Palestinian civilians.
"Now is the time to take concrete actions to decrease tensions that threaten our service members," the CPC leaders argued. "At this dangerous and unpredictable moment, we call for a renewed focus on de-escalation, diplomacy, and on addressing the root causes that have inflamed the region and provoked attacks on U.S. personnel in recent months."
The CPC remarks—which echo a Tuesday statement from Lee, who is running for U.S. Senate against two other California Democrats in the House—came as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed the administration wants to avoid a regional war.
Addressing reporters for the first time since a controversial set of hospitalizations, Austin said of the attack in Jordan:
The president will not tolerate attacks on American troops and neither will I. Our teammates were killed by radical militias backed by Iran and operating inside Syria and Iraq.
In the aftermath of the vile Hamas terrorist assault on Israel on October 7th, terrorist groups backed by Iran and funded by Iran have tried to create even more turmoil, including the Houthis attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
So this is a dangerous moment in the Middle East. We will continue to work to avoid a wider conflict in the region but we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our interests, and our people. And we will respond when we choose, where we choose, and how we choose.
"We will have a multitiered response, and again, we have the ability to respond... a number of times depending on what the situation is," the Pentagon chief added, while also stating that "we're not at war with Iran."
Citing unnamed officials, CBS Newsreported Thursday that in response to recent drone and rocket attacks on U.S. forces in the region, "plans have been approved for a series of strikes over a number of days against targets—including Iranian personnel and facilities—inside Iraq and Syria," and "weather will be a major factor in the timing."