'War followed us': A Syrian family fled Beirut after Israeli bombardment to face repression, bombing at home

Ahmed Yahia Dabbas fled to Lebanon more than a decade ago to escape the relentless bombardment and frequent airstrikes carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and its Russian allies in northwest Syria.

Dabbas, 37, moved to the southern suburbs of Beirut, where he found work as a doorman and began rebuilding a new life away from his war-torn country. He and his wife welcomed four children, two boys and two girls, now between the ages of 4 and 9.

Dabbas spoke with Fox News Digital from northwest Syria by phone in an interview translated by the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit and advocacy group, where he described his family's five-day journey from Lebanon to an area liberated from Assad regime control and the challenges they've faced as displaced people.

Once the family reached the Syria-Lebanon border, they encountered numerous checkpoints manned by various security apparatuses of the Assad regime. Dabbas said many of the people running the checkpoints demanded money for them to pass through, and they ultimately ended up paying bribes to keep moving.

They then spent three nights in a kind of "no man's land" between regime- and rebel-held areas of Aleppo. Dabbas said as they were waiting, they were spit on, beaten and weren't allowed to eat or drink, as was the case with other people who were fleeing Lebanon and looking to leave regime-held areas.

Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of SETF, told Fox News Digital it's "scary" and "disturbing" that some Gulf Arab states are normalizing relations with Assad and some European countries are considering forcefully sending refugees back to Syria.

"Syria's not safe," Moustafa said. "Anywhere regime-held, it is where people would rather continue walking after walking for so long."

Although Israel and Lebanon agreed to a cease-fire deal in late November, Dabbas said he and his family won't return to Beirut. The father of four said his brother, who is also displaced in northwest Syria, has helped them out, but they're running out of the food they received upon arrival, and he's struggling to find a job. 

"There is no safety and security," Dabbas said. He told Fox News Digital he's experienced an indescribable feeling of joy being back in his home country, reuniting with family members, but he wants peace and the bombing to stop.

The humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria has worsened in recent months, with both an increase in displaced people and a surge in drone attacks on civilians in residential areas. 

Ismail Alabdullah, a volunteer with Syria Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, a rescue organization founded in 2013 after the start of the Syrian civil war, told Fox News Digital the Assad regime and its allies started a new strategy of attacking residential areas with suicide drones.

"This kind of weapon, suicide drones, is very, very dangerous, to be honest," he said. "They are cheap, and they can fly anywhere they want. And they can attack any place they want." 

"Families are afraid to send their children to school," Alabdullah added.

"Maybe the world still - they don't want to hear about this. They want to hear that the bombings are stopped and nothing is happening in Syria, and northwest Syria is safe. It's not safe. The attacks are still going on, especially in Idlib."

In a surprising development, Syrian rebels entered Aleppo, the country's second-largest city, on Friday for the first time since 2016 after launching an offensive against regime forces earlier this week.

Reuters noted the shock offensive was the first territorial advance since 2020 after a cease-fire agreement between Turkey and Russia halted fighting in Idlib.

Alabdullah told Fox News Digital the White Helmets still need help from the international community and the need is bigger than their capacity, especially as winter approaches and they deal with an increased number of displaced people.

"The whole thing needs to be stopped. People need to return to their homes to end the suffering, to get their lives back."