Israeli airstrikes near Lebanon’s eastern border crossings with Syria have forced the vital routes shut, according to a Lebanese official and the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The strikes have led to the closure of Al-Qaa and the Masnaa border crossings.
Lebanon’s transport minister, Ali Hamieh, stated that Al-Qaa was forced shut on Friday after Israel struck the Syrian side of the border, just “hundreds of meters” away from the crossing.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the Jousieh border crossing the northern Beqaa area” referring to the Al-Qaa border crossing. The IDF accused Hezbollah of exploiting the civilian crossing to transfer weapons.
Key context: The Masnaa crossing was the only route for Lebanese fleeing war into neighboring Syria.
“This latest attack is forcing parents to carry their children and belongings as they navigate their way between two huge craters in the road in a bid to seek safety,” OCHA said Thursday.
One functional route: Hamieh said that the Israeli strikes now leave only one operational passage between Syria and Lebanon – the Arida border crossing in northern Tripoli, in the north-west of Lebanon.
In recent weeks, around 425,000 people, including 300,000 Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in an attempt to flee the war with Israel, according to the UN.
