Dear Deeply Readers,

Welcome to the archives of Syria Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on May 15, 2018, and transitioned some of our coverage to Peacebuilding Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Syrian conflict. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.

We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].

One on One: Kareem Shaheen, Reporter, the Daily Star

What’s it like to cover Syria for a Lebanese newspaper.

Written by Karen Leigh Published on Read time Approx. 3 minutes

Kareem Shaheen is a reporter for the Daily Star, a Beirut-based English-language newspaper that devotes much of its news space to chronicling the minutiae of the Syrian conflict, including its continuing impact on Lebanon.

Since his arrival at the paper last summer, Shaheen has covered everything from the refugee crisis to the fallout of bombings in the capital’s southern suburbs, to retaliatory attacks by pro-rebel factions opposed to Hezbollah’s fighting alongside Assad forces.

Here, he discusses the challenges and benefits of reporting on Syria from Beirut for a Lebanese news outlet.

I’ve been in Lebanon since June of last year. It was an opportune time to start working here, because within a couple of weeks there were clashes in Sidon. That was my first exposure to the passions and violence that can be sparked in Lebanon. Within a few weeks we started to see bombings in the southern suburbs. At my paper we don’t like to refer to them as Hezbollah strongholds, because that implies that the attacks are against military installations, when they’re basically targeting residential neighborhoods associated with Hezbollah where they enjoy broad popular support.

It was my first exposure to the violence caused by the crisis in Syria because the rationale behind these attacks as articulated by the groups carrying them out was always Hezbollah’s participation in the conflict.

The interesting thing in Lebanon – I cover the impact of Syria on Lebanon – is that people tend to have preformed opinions, and a lot of people tend to see the events in Syria within that context. They have that opinion and then assimilate events that happen into that broader narrative that they believe in. The main concern people have here is obviously the issue of the spread of extremism and violence across the border into Lebanon. And the impact of the refugee presence in Lebanon. They don’t have standard refugee camps, and they live among the host communities. So from the Lebanese perspective you have these three main issues colliding when you talk about issues in Syria.

The story that has the most impact right now is the refugee crisis. It triggers all sorts of requirements and contingency plans. Lebanon has a particular history with the refugee camps because they are worried there will be a shift in the democratic balance like there was with the Palestinians who have been here since 1948. At the same time, a lot of Syrians here want to go back, but can’t. And we’re seeing shifts: there have been fewer bombings in the last few months, and Hezbollah’s media outlets have reported that their successes on the border alongside the regime have tightened the noose on extremists in the area and prevented them from crossing into Lebanon.

I’m better off than a lot of my Lebanese colleagues because I’m Egyptian, so I can often speak to people from either side of the aisle and they speak open and freely about Syria because they don’t think I support either side in the conflict. It’s interesting seeing such opposing viewpoints. One day I’ll be working on a story from the southern suburbs, in Dahieh, and as part of the conversation people will talk about Syria and what they think is happening, and they’ll be more likely to [be pro fighting] and say, “Yeah, we’re fighting the Takfiris, were fighting the fundamentalists,” and you’ll move on to cover a presidential campaign where the candidate is talking about how Hezbollah needs to leave Syria. You get such opposed views on the conflict, you need to compartmentalize that.

Part of the challenge of writing about Syria from Lebanon is that you need to come up with original angles for stories like the refugee crisis. I have to constantly be looking for opportunities to talk about them: I’ve tried to focus on the medical challenges, refugees caught in fighting in northern Lebanon. I talked to the family of a nine-year-old girl who had fled Homs and ended up dying in a bombing in the Beirut suburbs. We wanted to cover the impact of a winter snowstorm this year, in the high altitudes in the north where refugee tent settlements are based.

We didn’t want to cover it in the traditional sense – it’s going to be cold and problematic – so instead I suggested spending the night with them and see what it’s like. It was interesting: besides the fact that it was cold and constantly raining, one of the most interesting things was that they really had nothing to do for most of the day. They had a lot of free time they couldn’t do anything with because they didn’t have permits to work. All these themes emerge from spending time with the families, including that some of the children had symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of violence they had seen in their hometown.

Suggest your story or issue.

Send

Share Your Story.

Have a story idea? Interested in adding your voice to our growing community?

Learn more