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Nearly 300,000 children have fled Lebanon to Syria amid Israeli carnage: Save the Children

A child holds onto their belongings while crossing from Lebanon into Syria at Masnaa border crossing, Lebanon, Oct. 28, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)

The international charity organization Save the Children says about 300,000 children have fled from Lebanon to Syria in the past seven weeks in hope for safety, as the Israeli regime continues its brutal aggression against the Arab country.  

Rasha Muhrez, Director of Save the Children’s Syria Response, said on Tuesday that most of these children and their families are arriving in Syria at a time when humanitarian conditions have never been worse and the country is enduing a cost-of-living crisis.

He went on to say that half a million children require life-saving treatment for acute malnutrition, which would have once been unthinkable in Syria, as the country is still fragmented from its own years-long foreign-backed war.

Murez also stressed the need for “an urgent injection of funds that prioritizes the needs and recovery of children and youth who have been newly displaced as well as the communities that are hosting them.”

The international organization further noted that many children who are seeking safety from the worsening conflict in Lebanon are traveling alone, warning that they are at risk of abuse, food shortages and illness as winter looms.

According to Save the Children, an estimated 70 percent of the people being displaced from Lebanon to Syria are Syrians, who made that same journey in the other direction several years ago, with the remainder being Lebanese or of other nationalities.

The United Nations estimates that approximately 60 percent of them are children and adolescents with many arriving in desperate need of medical care, shelter, food and water, the organization said.

Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Lebanon in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war.

At least 3,287 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the last year, with the vast majority in the past seven weeks. Another 14,222 have been wounded, mostly women and children.

The Lebanese government says some 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel launched its bombing campaign on Lebanon, including many of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have been sheltering in Lebanon since conflict hit their country 13 years ago..

In response to the ongoing aggression, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.


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