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Syrian Shi’ites and Other Minorities Flee to Lebanon, Fearing Islamist Rule
A drone view shows people walking near a statue in Damascus, after Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria, Dec. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano
Tens of thousands of Syrians, mostly Shi’ite Muslims, have fled to Lebanon since Sunni Muslim Islamists toppled Bashar al-Assad, fearing persecution despite assurances from the new rulers in Damascus that they will be safe, a Lebanese official said.
At the border with Lebanon, where thousands of people were trying to leave Syria on Thursday, a dozen Shi’ite Muslims interviewed by Reuters described threats made against them, sometimes in person but mostly on social media.
Their accounts reflect fears of persecution despite promises of protection by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the Sunni Islamist group which has emerged as the dominant force in the new Syria but is far from being the only armed faction on the ground.
Shi’ite communities have often been on the frontline of Syria’s 13-year civil war, which took on sectarian dimensions as Assad, from the minority Alawite faith, mobilised regional Shi’ite allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to help fight Sunni rebels.
The senior Lebanese security official said more than 100,000 people, largely members of minority faiths, had crossed into Lebanon since Sunday, but could not give an exact number because most of them had used illegal crossings along the porous border.
At the main border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, Samira Baba said she had been waiting for three days to enter Lebanon with her children.
“We don’t know who sent these threats, on WhatsApp and Facebook,” she said. “The rebels in charge haven’t openly threatened us, so it could be other factions, or individuals. We just don’t know. But we know it’s time to leave,” she said.
The new Syria holds uncertainty for many, especially minorities. Shi’ites are thought to number around a tenth of the population, which stood at 23 million before the war began.
While HTS, which has cut its ties with the global jihadist network al Qaeda, is the most powerful of the constellation of factions that fought Assad, there are numerous other armed groups, many of which are Islamist.
Ayham Hamada, a 39-year-old Shi’ite who was serving in the army when Assad fell, said the regime’s collapse was so sudden that it left him and his brother, also a soldier, scrambling to decide whether to stay or go.
They fled to Damascus where they received threats, he said, without elaborating. “We are afraid of sectarian killings… this will be liquidation.”
Despite assurances voiced by HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, Hamada said minorities have been left without protection after Assad’s sudden flight. “Bashar took his money and fled and didn’t pay attention to us,” he said.
Many of the Shi’ites at the border were from Sayyeda Zeinab, a Damascus district home to a Shi’ite shrine where fighters from Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias were based. Supported by Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards, the Shi’ite militias also came from Iraq and Afghanistan, and recruited some Syrian Shi’ites.
Elham, a 30-year-old nurse, said she had been waiting at the crossing for days without food or water with her 10-day-old niece and two-year-old son.
A Shi’ite from Damascus, she said she fled to rural areas when the regime fell. When she returned, she found her house looted and torched. She and others said that armed, masked men raided their homes and ordered them at gunpoint to leave, or be killed.
“They took our car because they said it’s theirs. You daren’t say a word. We left everything and fled.”
Reuters could not immediately reach HTS officials for comment on threats received by minorities.
‘WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE’
In parts of Syria’s north, however, some residents who fled when HTS went on the offensive in late November said they now felt confident to return.
“My wife is Sunni. We are all one people and one nation,” Hussein Al-Saman, 48, a Shi’ite father of three told Reuters, next to the main mosque in the Shi’ite town of Nubl, where Hezbollah once stationed fighters.
He praised HTS leader Sharaa for his efforts to protect the community, saying he “enabled us to come to our houses”.
“We were a minority and didn’t have a choice but to stand with (Assad). But now that the war is over we are free… I hope for my children to just live comfortably under the new government.”
Bassam Abdulwahab, an official overseeing the returns, said essential services had been restored. “Security was provided to protect the minorities,” he said, adding that this “is the approach of the commanding leadership”.
“We carry the responsibility of protecting the minorities in Syria. What happens to us happens to them,” he said.
At the entrance to Nubl, a statue of Assad lay toppled. Further into the town, residents cleaned stores and repaired damaged buildings, while officials in military fatigues coordinated the return of those who had fled.
“The (Assad) regime forced the minorities here to live in a situation where they had to be enemies of their neighbours,” said Muhyie Al-Dien, who works in mining. “The regime played its game so it could divide us and our Sunni brothers.”
While some in Nubl spoke hopefully of the future, one 41-year-old man, who gave his name as Hami and declined to speak on camera, was more cautious. “We are Shi’ite and the new leadership is Sunni. We don’t know what will happen,” he said.
The post Syrian Shi’ites and Other Minorities Flee to Lebanon, Fearing Islamist Rule first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.