DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: Some 700 Syrian refugees left Lebanon for their war-torn home country, in a repatriation organised by the Lebanese and Syrian authorities, witnesses and security sources said.
"Most of the returnees wanted to go back. Lists were given to Lebanese authorities and whoever was approved to return by the Syrian government has returned," Rana Ramdan, an official at the Lebanese Ministry of the Displaced, told reporters.
Trucks loaded with luggage, power generators and furniture left refugee camps in the town of Arsal in north-western Lebanon to return home to areas such as villages of the Qalmoun region in western Syria as well as rural Homs in the centre.
"I am leaving Arsal after nine years and going home because I miss my country," said Sadallah Khalil, a native of Qalamoun.
The UNHCR is currently not aiding or encouraging Syrians to return home, said an official at the UN refugee agency.
"Nonetheless, thousands of refugees choose to exercise their right to return each year," UNHCR spokeswoman in Beirut, Lisa Abu Khaled, told reporters.
She said the agency supports and calls for respecting the fundamental human right of refugees to freely return to their country "in line with the international principles of voluntary, dignified and safe return and non-refoulement." Non-refoulement is a term used in international law to characterise the principle of not forcing refugees to return to their home countries, if these are dangerous.
Syria's state news agency SANA confirmed that dozens of displaced families, who were living in Lebanon's refugee camps, returned to Syria through the al-Dabbousiya crossing in rural Homs.
The Lebanese government has recently called on some 1 million Syrian refugees living in the country to return home after the Syrian government retook control of most territories from rebels.
4 KILLED IN ISRAELI STRIKE
Meanwhile, four fighters were killed on Thursday during Israeli strikes on several positions near Damascus, a war monitor said, in the third such attack in less than a week.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory since civil war broke out there in 2011, targeting government positions as well as of allied forces.
Explosions were heard in the Syrian capital in the night of Wednesday to Thursday, an AFP correspondent reported.
"At around 00:30 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Palestinian territories targeting several positions in the vicinity of Damascus," the Syrian defence ministry had said in a statement.
Syria's air defence intercepted several missiles, the ministry added.
It did not provide any details on the targets and said that the strikes caused material damage.
The Israeli strikes targeted "weapons and ammunition depots and bases housing rebel groups a few kilometres from Damascus International Airport," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
The UK-based war monitor, which relies on a wide network of sources in Syria, later said that four rebel fighters, including one Syrian, were killed during the strikes.
On Monday, Israel struck the vicinity of Damascus, wounding one soldier, after a strike three days earlier targeted Syrian military sites near the airport. -- dpa/AFP
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