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BEIRUT: More than 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned to their homeland from neighboring Lebanon this year following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, a United Nations official told AFP.

The Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011 with Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, displaced half of the population internally or abroad.

But the December 8 ouster of the former Syrian president at the hands of Islamist forces sparked hopes of return.

Lebanese authorities recently introduced a plan offering $100 in aid and exemptions from fines for refugees leaving the country, provided they pledge not to return as asylum seekers.

“Since the beginning of this year, we’re looking at about 200,000 Syrians that have gone back, most of them on their own,” said Kelly Clements, deputy high commissioner at the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

“That number is increasing very quickly,” she told AFP in an interview.

While many Syrians are heading back to Hama, Homs and Aleppo, most refugees remain in Lebanon where humanitarian needs remain high amid shrinking aid budgets.

Clements stressed the UNHCR was not encouraging returns, describing it as “an individual choice for each family to make.”

Lebanese authorities estimate that the country hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The United Nations says it has registered more than 755,000.

UNHCR support for returnees includes small-scale housing repairs, cash assistance and core relief items, though more intensive reconstruction is beyond the agency’s capacity.

About 80 percent of Syrian housing was damaged during the civil war, with one in three families needing housing support, according to Clement.

The majority of Syrians who fled the 14-year civil war to Lebanon remain there, she noted, with needs remaining high as humanitarian aid decreases.

“You see the Lebanon budget decreasing, you see the Syrian budget increasing,” she said, pointing out however that the UNHCR’s 2025 plan only reached a fifth of its needed funds.

The agency is unable to determine whether Syria as a whole was safe to return to, she said, as parts of Syria were “safe and peaceful” while other parts were “less secure.”

According to the UN, over two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people returned to their areas of origin since the Islamist-led offensive toppled Assad.

However, around 13.5 million Syrians remain displaced internally or abroad.

The new authorities are dealing with a devastated economy and destroyed infrastructure, with the majority of citizens living below the poverty line, according to the UN.

DEIR AL BALAH: Tens of thousands of reservists started to report for duty on Tuesday ahead of a new Israeli offensive in Gaza City, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to speed up, despite warnings from senior ranks.

Israeli Army Radio said that some 40,000 reservists would report for duty on Tuesday for the Gaza City offensive. The military said it was readying logistically for the intake of reservists ahead of the offensive.

Israel’s security cabinet, chaired by Netanyahu, approved a plan last month to expand the campaign in Gaza with the aim of taking Gaza City, where Israeli forces waged fierce urban warfare with Hamas in the early stages of the war. Israel currently holds about 75 percent of the Gaza Strip.

A security cabinet meeting late on Sunday included angry exchanges between Netanyahu and his ministers, who want to push ahead with the Gaza City offensive, and military chief Eyal Zamir, who has urged the politicians to reach a ceasefire deal.

Zamir said the campaign will endanger hostages and put further strain on the already over-stretched army, according to four ministers and two military officials present at the meeting.

This follows similar exchanges between Zamir and Netanyahu’s cabinet last month. Netanyahu said on August 20 that he gave the instruction to speed up the timetable for taking what he describes as Hamas’ last bastion.

But on August 21, in discussions to approve the battle plans, the military again warned against hostages being endangered and said it could not begin the campaign for at least two months, according to a source in Netanyahu’s circle and a defense official.

The military’s main reason was that more time was needed for humanitarian efforts. But surveys have shown a substantial proportion of reservists are unhappy with the cabinet’s plans, with some having taken the unusual step of openly accusing the government of lacking a cohesive strategy for Gaza, a post-war plan for the enclave or clear victory metrics.

“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything that really applies significant pressure to have Hamas release the hostages,” one combat reservist who has been serving in Gaza since October 7 told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Israeli strikes

At least 86 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, and scores more were wounded in the past 24 hours, local health authorities said.

Three separate airstrikes killed 26 people in total in houses in the Gaza City suburbs, where the Israeli forces stepped up aerial and ground bombardment in preparation for expanding the fighting.

Outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, white plastic body bags with corpses were laid out on the street spattered with blood. Crowds wailed for slain relatives.

“We fled (our homes) with nothing. They went to get clothes and food from their homes, to bring clothes for their children and food for themselves... and Look now! They came back as martyrs!” said Nasr Nasr, a relative of some of the dead.

Hundreds of mourners carried bodies through the streets. Others stood and prayed around a group of five bodies in shrouds, including three tiny children.

The Israeli army’s Arabic service spokesperson told residents of Gaza there would be better humanitarian services in the south, as the army prepared to expand the Gaza City offensive.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment but it has stated that its forces are combating fighters on the outskirts of Gaza City, destroying tunnels and militant infrastructure and seizing weapons.

Other deaths reported on Tuesday included five people killed while waiting in a food line in the south, nine killed in a strike on an apartment, and seven killed by Israeli tank fire.

Thirteen more Palestinians, including three children, died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Tuesday, raising officially reported deaths from such causes to at least 361, including 130 children, the vast majority in recent weeks.

Israel disputes the hunger fatality figures given by the health ministry of Gaza’s government, arguing that deaths were due to other medical causes.

The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when gunmen led by Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities near the border, killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and taking 251 hostages including children into Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza since then, according to Gaza health officials, who do not say how many were militants but have said most of those killed have been women and children.

Ceasefire talks that would see a pause in the fighting ended in a deadlock in July.

Israeli authorities believe that of the 48 remaining captives, 20 hostages are still alive.