MARSEILLE — Syria has long been a key battleground in Iran and Israel’s shadow war. But since October 7—when Iran-backed Hamas launched its ground incursion into Israel from Gaza—attacks on and from Syrian territory have proliferated in scale and scope.  It was in Syria that an Israeli strike sparked this month’s unprecedented escalation between Iran and Israel. In the wake of Tel Aviv’s April 1 assassination of top Iranian commanders at Tehran’s consulate in Damascus, the two countries reached their highest level of direct conflict to date. When Iran and its regional proxies fired a barr ..read more

AMMAN/PARIS — Atia Abu Salem, a refugee in Jordan, is facing deportation back to Syria. He and a Jordanian friend were on their way to film a demonstration in Amman in support of Palestinians in Gaza on April 9 when they were both arrested. Six days later, Jordan’s Ministry of Interior issued an order to deport Abu Salem, a 24-year-old student at the Faculty of Mass Communication at Yarmouk University in Jordan’s northern Irbid governorate. The April 15 order, which Syria Direct obtained a copy of, stipulates “the above-mentioned person be removed from the territory of the Hashemite Kingdom of ..read more

AL-HASAKAH — When Ivan Hesen received his visa to enter the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) on March 7, he was overjoyed. At last, the 31-year-old from Syria’s northeastern Qamishli city could “reunite with my wife and two children, who live in Erbil,” he said. There, perhaps they could build a better life. While Hesen was preparing to travel, his hopes were dashed. On April 4, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Interior released a decision suspending the issuing of entry visas to those with Syrian passports as of March 29, 2024. Syrians with residency in the United States, Can ..read more

BEIRUT — For the seventh evening in a row, Abed and his brother George watched the sunset on Sunday from their small balcony in Burj Hammoud, a historically Armenian town just east of Beirut. The brothers, who fled to Lebanon from Homs in 2015, had not left their apartment for a week, too afraid to venture into the streets below where violence against Syrians has spiked. It began with the killing of Pascal Sleiman, a senior official of the Lebanese Forces (LF), a right-wing Christian political party opposed to the Syrian regime and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. The Lebanese army said Sleiman w ..read more

CAIRO – After earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Business Administration from two top Egyptian universities, 32-years old Aref* thought he would easily find work as an accountant. While in school, he worked long hours as a waiter in a Syrian restaurant, and was eager for better-paid employment. But for a full year after graduating in 2017, Aref could not land a job in his field, unlike other students from his cohort. The problem was not his diploma or the saturated Egyptian labor market, he realized, but his Syrian nationality. “No one said it to my face, but once recruiters found o ..read more

6TH OF OCTOBER CITY/CAIRO — Nestled between towering gray buildings overflowing with tiny shops, the “Syrian Passage” is an oasis of calm. A wide alley of cafes and shisha joints surrounded by bustling commercial streets, its terraces are largely empty under the mid-afternoon sun. Waiters stand idle as customers leisurely stroll the main aisle.   When night falls, the Syrian Passage comes to life, filled with crowds drawn by what locals call the “Syrian atmosphere” of the area, which hosts dozens of restaurants, cafes and bakeries whose owners hail from different parts of Syria. Loca ..read more

MERSIN — At his family’s secluded tent, set up on agricultural land in Syria’s northwestern Idlib countryside, 11-year-old Ahmad Amro has a simple dream: “to wear school clothes—to go to school.” Instead, the family’s harsh living conditions keep him and his older brother out of the classroom, selling daffodils to help their father. Ahmad’s family of 10 has lived on private land in the Ras al-Hosn area near Harem, a city in northern Idlib province ever since they were displaced from east Aleppo city’s al-Kalaseh neighborhood in 2016. Because they are not registered as residents of a camp, they ..read more

ZAATARI — In Zaatari, the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, supermarkets are packed. Decorations for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan dangle above shoppers preparing for the evening’s fast-breaking iftar meal and the fast-approaching Eid al-Fitr holiday. A few days into April, Zaatari’s nearly 80,000 residents have just received their monthly food aid allowance from the World Food Program (WFP). However, the sum is significantly less this Ramadan after funding pitfalls forced WFP to reduce its food assistance for Syrians in Jordan in July 2023. “The aid isn’t enough, you can’t buy anything ..read more

PARIS — Abu Zaki al-Zoubi and a group of clan notables in Syria’s southern Houran region are on the verge of ending a years-long dispute and blood feud between three families in the western Daraa city of Tafas that has left more than 20 people dead. The work is part of efforts by al-Zoubi, 60, a notable of the al-Zoubi clan in western Daraa, and other clan leaders to “make peace between people and solve clan disputes,” he told Syria Direct. It is a task that occupies much of his day. Al-Zoubi is part of an unofficial reconciliation committee made up of clan notables, community leaders (mukhtar ..read more

PARIS — Bassam (a pseudonym) was sitting with friends last year at a gathering in Inkhil, a city in the north of Syria’s southern Daraa province, when one of them distributed small pills among the group. As his friends laughed and swallowed them, Bassam joined in, though he says he did not know it was a drug.  “I was embarrassed not to take it like everyone else,” he said. “I thought it wouldn’t have an effect.” Half an hour went by, and “I started to lose awareness of my surroundings. When I came back to myself, I found I was smoking hookah for the first time in my life,” the 20-year-old ..read more