Responders

by Karen Rahme | Lebanon Support

Lebanon’s nation-wide lockdown meant to protect residents, and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, has disproportionately affected the socio-economic conditions of vulnerable populations. The global health crisis has notably compounded the detrimental results of a collapsing economy. For Syrian refugees, already struggling in terms of freedom of movement (or lack thereof), all the while living under the extreme poverty line, home confinement has only worsened livelihoods and living conditions, and further constrained already restricted access to public services.

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by Johanna-Maria Huelzer, Alli Divine | Lebanon Support

The Lebanese social protection system is fragmented, inefficient, and highly privatised. Available social services are insufficient, leaving the poorest and most vulnerable of the Lebanese population, without systematic support of their basic needs. This lack of provision exposes the urgent need for substantial reform of the official Lebanese social protection system. One of the many outgrowths of a “laissez-faire”…

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by Alli Divine, Johanna-Maria Huelzer | Lebanon Support

Lebanon’s borders are simultaneously porous, largely un-demarcated, and heavily militarised. Lebanon’s border with Syria, mapped by the French mandate, was never fully formalised before the colonial withdrawal in 1943. Characterised by fluidity, and circular labor migration, between Syrians and Lebanese through the 1990s, it was largely overlooked by state actors until the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011. Indeed, no formal international boundary agreement exists between the two countries.

Much like the border with Syria, Lebanon’s southern border facilitated constant flows of people and commerce until 1949, when the emergence of the Palestinian Intifada led to border closure between Israel and Lebanon. War between Israel and its neighbors in 1948 and 1967, combined with intermittent Israeli occupations of Lebanon’s southern villages, subsequently hardened the border.

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