Over 300,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon, of whom at least 200,000 under age 18, have fled the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and returned to Syria.

However, unlike the tens of thousands of Lebanese nationals also fleeing across the border, these Syrians are being treated as migrants in their own home country. 

Most of them do not have property deeds and -- after 13 years in exile -- most of the nuclear families that have arrived in recent days in Homs, Raqaa, and the suburbs of Damascus are made up only of mothers and their children.  

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Story of Bassma, Nizar, and their children 

Basma, 34, who in 2011 fled Homs, a city that remains semi-destroyed in central Syria very close to the Lebanese border, spoke to ANSA via phone about her situation.

The Syrian war has left over half a million people dead and forced over 10 million Syrians to leave their homes. 

Among the latter are Bassma and her husband Nizar. Like many other husbands and fathers who fear being conscripted into the military of a country in an endless war or who are wanted by the Syrian authorities for their dissident activities, are staying in war-torn Lebanon. 

Nizar is staying in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which has come under frequent Israeli attack in recent weeks. 

"It's always better than ending up in regime prisons," Bassma told ANSA. 

Their three children -- Luay, Ahmad and Jana, who are 12,10, and 6 years old -- are among the approximately 240,000 minors that have returned to Syria since Israel started bombing Lebanon in September. 

However, they were all born in "informal" refugee camps in Lebanon, a country that does not recognize refugee status and that in recent months has been applying heavily discriminatory measures against Syrians. 

Prior to the outbreak of full-fledged war a month ago, a collapse of the Lebanese economy and the handling of over a million Syrian refugees in a country with only about six million inhabitants total had generated a sense of the Syrians as an "unsustainable burden" among many in the country who called for them to be "sent home". 

However, the three children of Bassma and Nizar do not know what Syria is. And, while fleeing Israel's bombs, they found a very unwelcoming situation across the border as well: the Syria of today is a country that is bombed almost every day by Israel, suffers raids by foreign militaries and militias, and is suffering from the worst financial crisis in its history. 

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2/3 of the 306,000 Syrian returnees are minors, UN 

According to the UN, some 425,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past month. Of them, 306,000 are Syrian nationals (72 percent), of whom two-thirds are minors. The rest are Lebanese nationals hosted in facilities made available by the Syrian government and who are eligible for UNHCR assistance. 

However, many of the Syrians returning are treated as de facto migrants in their own country, and even those who own property are unlikely to be able to return to it as it has in most cases been destroyed, looted, or occupied by others. Those who do not own property are forced to find other lodgings, many times in the homes of relatives -- as in the 'fortunate' case of Bassma and her three children. 

Many others are forced to sleep in parks or the street, even as winter approaches. 

The government has announced that it has opened 20 temporary facilities but said that most of them have been set aside for Lebanese nationals. 

"The situation is unliveable," Bassma told ANSA in describing the daily hardships of her relatives. "Here we don't know how to get both lunch and dinner. Everything is lacking. There is no life for us here." 

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