With Lebanon under Israeli bombardment, over 200,000 flee to war-torn Syria
With land travel now stymied due to Israeli shelling, desperate, hungry and tired civilians are making the arduous journey on foot to the Syrian border in hopes of finding temporary safety.
JDEIDET YABUS, Lebanon-Syria border — Crowds of civilians escaping the violence and bombing in Lebanon massed near the Syrian border town crossing of Jdeidet Yabus, painstakingly waiting for hours to obtain entry and find temporary safety from Israeli strikes.
As people gathered, Israeli jets overhead launched salvos of rockets aimed at the Beirut-Damascus highway connecting the two countries, devastating the road into Syria.
Amid the chaos, desperate refugees rushed over mountains of debris and huge craters created from the impact of the bombardment in the no-man's-land that lies between the two borders of Lebanon and Syria.
The attack immediately stopped any land travel outside of Lebanon to Damascus, as the thousands of civilians sought to join more than 240,000 Lebanese and Syrian refugees who had already fled to Syria during the past fortnight and learned that nowhere is safe.
