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Jan 15, 2025 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
The Assad regime is gone, but sanctions on Syria remain. As the country embarks on a long and costly road to recovery, should they be lifted? MARSEILLE — Riding a wave of euphoria, thousands of displaced Syrians rushed home after the Assad regime fell nearly six weeks ago. Many found only ruins, their houses razed or heavily damaged and their communities lacking basic services. The resources needed for Syrians to return home and rebuild are enormous after nearly 14 years of revolution and war.
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Dec 31, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon
With Assad gone, Suwayda’s protest movement endures, turning a watchful eye towards the new government in Damascus and planning for the future. MARSEILLE — Every day for a year, Salam al-Nawbani traveled 45 minutes from her home in the Suwayda village of Umm al-Rumman to the provincial capital’s central al-Karama (Dignity) Square, the beating heart of the Druze-majority province’s anti-regime protest movement.
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Dec 12, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon
Syrian relief organizations have raced to respond to needs on the ground following the collapse of the Assad regime, while international organizations and major donors remain largely paralyzed. MARSEILLE — As opposition forces swept into one Syrian city after another over the span of less than two weeks, ultimately toppling the Assad regime, prices soared and economic activity ground to a standstill in a country where most could already barely afford to get by.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
As HTS promises a new approach, Christians in Aleppo city are weighing assurances of protection against difficult memories. As opposition forces took control over the weekend, some fled, fearing the worst from Islamist factions. MARSEILLE — For now, Joseph Karam*, 42, is staying put with his wife and four young children at their apartment in al-Aziziya, a Christian neighborhood in the center of Aleppo.
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Nov 25, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
MARSEILLE — In al-Badawi, the Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon where Fadi Hani Bahij has lived with his wife and three children since fleeing Syria 12 years ago, the 47-year-old watches history repeat itself. “We’ve been reminded of the displacement of our grandparents, from Palestine to Lebanon to Syria,” Bahij told Syria Direct.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
As Israel wages a full-blown aerial and ground campaign in Lebanon, will Iran’s proxies in Syria come to the aid of its beleaguered ally Hezbollah? PARIS — For days following Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on September 27, one question was on the minds of many: How would Iran respond to the crushing blow to its most important regional ally? Striking Israel directly meant risking all-out war.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
While tens of thousands have fled Lebanon for Syria this week, many Syrians are taking their chances with Israeli bombing rather than face the risks of return. MARSEILLE — As Said Ayoub Darwish sheltered with his family in an open field in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Tuesday evening, his phone lit up with notifications. An Israeli airstrike had just hit a few meters away from the informal refugee camp he has lived in with his family since fleeing Syria in 2013. War had found them once again.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
New residency requirements have plunged Egypt’s 1.5 million Syrians into uncertainty and left many at risk of deportation. CAIRO — Abdulrahman seems older than his 23 years, with weary eyes and a long beard. Since being deported from Egypt in July, he has lived in hiding in Syria’s central Homs city. “When I do leave my home, I take side streets to avoid checkpoints,” he told Syria Direct by video call.
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Jul 18, 2024 | 
syriadirect.org | Natacha Danon |Mateo Nelson
As pressure on Syrians in Lebanon grows, Palestinian refugee camps have become a haven for refugees seeking lower rents and relative safety from eviction, street violence and the threat of deportation. BEIRUT — Residents of Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in west Beirut, bustle down its narrow streets, dodging mopeds zooming past. Street vendors and shopkeepers hawk their wares as the smell of freshly baked manakeesh pastries rises in the thick summer heat.
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May 15, 2024 | 
es.globalvoices.org | Natacha Danon
Israel ha matado a más de desde que empezó su mortal guerra en la franja, tras la incursión de Hamas en suelo israelí el 7 de octubre de 2023. La organización Reporteros Sin Fronteras ha presentado múltiples reclamos al Tribunal Penal Internacional para que se investigue la gran cantidad de «homicidios intencionales» de periodistas gazatíes. A pesar de que toda la atención está puesta en Gaza, las violaciones contra periodistas de Cisjordania se han multiplicado.
