The film ‘The Border’ starring Syrian actor Duraid Lahham, which tells the story of a man who gets stranded at the border between two Arab countries because he does not have a passport, is no longer a fictional tale, it has become the reality of three young Palestinian men. The Syrian crisis brought them to the border with Lebanon over 40 days ago. Their only crime is that they are Palestinian.
This is the Lebanese-Syrian border.
It is not Marj al-Zohour which hosted in the 1990s dozens of Palestinians expelled by Israel to what was known as the forbidden area.
There, at the dividing line between Lebanon and Syria, three Palestinian young men are trapped. They are unable to head east to Syria where they lost their homes and lives in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and they are not allowed to go west to Lebanon where their families - who have been displaced once again - are residing in Sidon and Jiyeh.
The three young men were deported by the Lebanese General Security Directorate and are now stuck at the border. For five days they slept in the open air between trucks parked in the area, until a man from the town of Majdal Anjar offered them a room normally used for construction work on al-Arabi Highway to use as shelter.
They believe that their cause is just, they want to live freely and intend to travel to any other country.
At the beginning, they used primitive tools to get by, to prepare food, drink and so on. They collected rainwater and lit firewood in a barrel for heating at night. They refused offers made by human smugglers to take them illegally into Lebanon again. They believe that their cause is just, they want to live freely and intend to travel to any other country. They have not yet become tired of waiting on the sidelines of hope, despite all the negative answers they got from the Palestinian embassy, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), organizations and the International Red Cross. Here, they are languishing in limbo between a decision denying them entry into Lebanon and a war in which they play no role and refuse to take sides in, but a war that displaced them nonetheless.
Adham Mawed, an engineer in his 20s, said repeatedly: “Our crime is that we are Palestinian. Wherever we go, there is no room for us.” In these words, he summed up his and his friends’ story of pain and waiting. For over 40 days, the Lebanese authorities have not found a way to allow them to enter Lebanon and reunite with their families and loved ones.
Adham had created a page to monitor violations against Palestinian refugees. He did not imagine that one day he, too, would be a story on this page. He said: “We are part of this suffering. If there is another planet, tell us where it is.” There are Palestinians in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya who are also stuck, unable to move to another country, “as if this earth is too small for us.”
The young man recounts, as he prepares a cup of coffee for his guests on a gas burner that he obtained recently, how fate brought them to this border crossing. He said they came to Lebanon two years ago with their families after the Yarmouk camp was destroyed. His computer engineering degree did not do him any good. He could not find work to put food on his family’s table and pay for living expenses in Lebanon. Because the doors to all the countries of the Arab world and the world are closed to Palestinians, he found himself, like many of his compatriots, dreaming of reaching a country in Europe illegally by sea, through Libya and then Italy.
Like others have done, Adham secured a visa to Libya from the Libyan embassy in Egypt. He said: “The visa is legal, it’s not forged as they tried to tell us. We’re not in any legal trouble. Our colleagues traveled two days before us.” He concluded from the investigation that the reason he was prevented from travelling through the Beirut International Airport is that Libya does not have an embassy in Lebanon since the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr.
Adham, like 48 other Palestinian Syrians, was surprised when the General Security personnel at the airport placed them in a room before they were taken back to the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria. This happened around the same that a decision was issued preventing Palestinian Syrians from entering Lebanese territories. Adham explained: “Forty six of the deportees entered Syria and I stayed behind with two others because we are wanted for compulsory military service and we cannot fight in Syria with any side. We are Palestinians.”
Hussam al-Yatim laughed when remembering the response Palestinian embassy gave them when they had contacted it for help. He recalled: “The embassy sent us US$ 100 and advised us to contact UNHCR, saying maybe the UN agency will send you off somewhere.” He cast a wry smile, adding: “We are the responsibility of the Syrian embassy because we hold a Syrian travel document and we are registered in the Syrian embassy.” But the UNHCR staff told us “to check with the Palestinian embassy. When we told them what the Palestinian embassy’s advice was, they said, ‘if I were in your shoes, I would get in by way of smuggling’.”
Yatim said his wife and four children are living in Jiyeh, Lebanon but they cannot come to the Masnaa Crossing to see him because they do not want to end up like him. “If they come, they will close the borders and they won’t be able to return.”
Meanwhile, Mustafa al-Yatim thanks God that the area where they are is covered by the Lebanese cell phone network, so he is able to stay in touch with his fiancée and family who are living in Saida. But all the contacts they made with organizations, UNRWA and the embassy have not borne any fruit. The young men repeatedly said: “We are not criminals, we are human beings but the whole world is against the Palestinians.”
About the way they were taken to the Masnaa Crossing he said: “Is it acceptable? We did not sneak into Lebanon to get stopped at the airport and handcuffed inside the bus until we reached the crossing.” He added: “Why do they want us to take sides in the Syrian conflict? That is why we can not enter Syria, so we don’t serve in the army.”
The three young men called on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to find a solution for them with the Lebanese authorities that would allow them entry into Lebanon without checking with the Syrian general security “because we were in Lebanon and we were deported.” They also called on the international community to implement United Nations resolution 194, which provides for the return of Palestinians to their original homeland in Palestine “since no country will take us.”
A source in the Lebanese General Security agency said that the decision to prevent Palestinians from entering Lebanon was issued in the aftermath of seizing 49 forged visas to Libya. The visa holders were interrogated at the Rafik Hariri Airport and they were deported. They were all Palestinian refugees from Syria. The source added that the decision has been in effect since then and any Palestinian who wants to enter Lebanon needs approval. That is why a lot of people return to Syria at the Masnaa Crossing when they learn of the decision.
A man working at the border crossing pointed out that a lot of people have been turned away. He told us the story of a Syrian woman married to a Palestinian Syrian man and has a one-year old child who was allowed to enter Lebanon but her baby daughter was denied entry, which forced the woman to go back to Syria.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
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