In Lebanon, villagers on the border watch Syria’s revolution with unease

YOUNINE, Lebanon, close to the border with Syria — Over the snowcapped mountains alongside the Lebanon-Syria border, the wind carries a pointy chill, blowing cigarette smoke from Rafaat Nasrallah’s hand as he gestures towards the horizon.

“We are at the border,” he says, “our roads lead to Syria, because for us Syria is my country as well as Lebanon.”

Nasrallah’s Christian village sits between two wars. One, in Lebanon, the place a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel is barely taking maintain. One other, in Syria, the place insurgent Islamist insurgents have swept throughout the nation, defeated authorities forces and toppled the dictatorial regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Nasrallah, a Lebanese Christian, had feared that the Syrian insurgent advances would flood Lebanon with extra refugees, weapons and terrorists. However right now, his fears haven’t been realized.

Lebanon already hosts the highest variety of refugees per capita worldwide, in response to the United Nations, with authorities estimates indicating roughly 1.5 million Syrian refugees residing within the nation since 2012. The inflow has put a pressure on Lebanon’s sources and infrastructure.

However now many Syrians are heading dwelling, jubilant. They carry mattresses on the roofs of their automobiles, sing chants of freedom and wave the revolutionary flag, some improvised from scraps of cardboard. Their return to Syria, after years of displacement, injects an surprising second of hope after years of violence.

“The situation is not scary,” Nasrallah says. “There is no bloodshed or executions. If it stays like this, contained in Syria, we are not concerned. But, if the groups want to come to Lebanon, we will be prepared.”

A revolution in Syria is sort of full after greater than a decade of civil struggle. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — a jihadist group as soon as linked to al-Qaida — has stormed throughout the nation in latest days, capturing Idlib, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus in lower than two weeks.

The group’s fast advance threatens to displace hundreds of Syrians loyal to the ousted regime and sever a provide chain from Iran to Syria, the place Tehran supported Assad’s regime, and to Lebanon, the place the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah is predicated. The shock HTS offensive met little resistance from the Syrian navy, which melted away from many regime-held areas within the face of the spectacular insurgent juggernaut.

For Nasrallah, the border past his village of Ras Baalbek is greater than a line on a map. It is a spot of reminiscence and ache. Trying towards Syria, he recollects crossing the hills as a boy to attend Boy Scouts there.

However after the Syrian struggle erupted in 2011, it started threatening Lebanese like him. Sunni Muslim rebels infiltrated Lebanon, clashing with Lebanese troopers and Hezbollah, abducting locals and setting off suicide bombs. To guard his group, his predominantly Christian village cast an alliance with Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim paramilitary drive.

“I’d make a deal with the devil if it meant protecting my village,” he says. “But Hezbollah is not the devil. They’re our neighbors, the kids we grew up going to school with.”

That alliance got here at a price. The street resulting in his village is lined with craters from Israeli strikes. Hezbollah makes use of this border to ferry weapons from Iran, throughout Syria and into Lebanon. These provide strains are what Israel has been focusing on.

The scars of greater than a yr of struggle between Israel and Hezbollah might be seen all through Lebanon.

Within the close by village of Younine, Fatima Salah picks by means of the rubble of what was as soon as her household dwelling whereas reciting a verse from the Quran. Simply final month, an Israeli airstrike decreased the home to a tangle of bricks, mangled metallic and damaged youngsters’s toys.

Israel says its operation in Lebanon targets Hezbollah fighters and navy infrastructure.

Ten of Salah’s cousins have been killed within the assault, she says. The youngest, Haider, was only one and a half years outdated.

“It’s just twisted metal,” she says, choosing up a bit of shrapnel from the rubble.

But, as she mourns, Salah now sees Syrians stream throughout the border returning to the houses, whereas different Syrians are coming into Lebanon.

“Those who are against the Assad government are returning to Syria, but others are getting displaced. The [Assad] supporters are now coming to Lebanon and we are receiving some of them in our village,” she says.

For Salah, Syria and Israel are two fronts in a wider struggle. On the identical day that Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire and a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, Syrian rebels began making advances towards Assad’s forces on the opposite aspect of this border.

The timing of the rebel assault inside Syria has fueled hypothesis in Lebanon — that Israel and the U.S. have been behind the insurgent advances, in search of to weaken Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah, who Salah sees as her protector. The U.S. has designated HTS as a terrorist group and maintains a coverage of not supporting the group. A former Israeli navy commander did verify that his nation armed some anti-Assad insurgent factions.

“The day it stopped over here, it started over there. It’s not a coincidence. It’s the same war,” Salah says. Talking of the Sunni teams similar to HTS, she says: “They are next to us, they are on our borders … Aleppo, Hama, Damascus, and then us.”

Her concern is actual. A decade in the past, the identical rebels who lately took over cities in Syria crossed into Lebanon simply behind her home. They have been a part of Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS’ predecessor.

The insurgents unleashed a reign of terror in some areas, sending a message to Hezbollah, whose fighters have been battling alongside Assad’s forces in Syria. These incursions drew Lebanon deeper into the Syrian battle, forcing the Lebanese Military and Hezbollah to reply with navy operations to reclaim these areas.

For individuals like Ali Zgheib, the implications of this violence are private. A global legislation scholar, Zgheib balances his educational pursuits together with his household’s custom of shepherding. Like his father and grandfather earlier than him, he herds sheep alongside the Lebanon-Syria border — a terrain that has turn out to be a fault line in a wider regional struggle.

“My mom is Syrian,” he says, from the town of Homs, which is now below the management of insurgent forces.

“We’re terrified,” Zgheib admits. His fears come from two instructions: the continued Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, which have persevered regardless of a ceasefire, and the Sunni rebels now in management in a lot of Syria, the place Zgheib crossed into commonly to promote his sheep in native markets.

“If these two wars come together,” he says, his voice heavy with unease, “it’ll happen right here. And there will be no ceasefire anymore.”