Nora Milch, PhD Research Fellow, University of Oslo

In Spring 2024, Lebanon joined a number of countries that have agreed to EU financial aid in return for containing migration towards Europe. This paper offers some initial reflection on the implications of bringing Lebanon on board to implement the EU’s externalization agenda. Looking at the discussions that have followed the aid announcement in Lebanon, the paper explains how contestation is likely to shape the outcome of the EU-Lebanon cooperation.

Partners in border control

In spring 2024, the EU’s cooperation with Lebanon over migrant containment has taken a turn for the worse. During a visit to Beirut on 2 May 2024, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a EUR 1 billion aid package for the Lebanese state. Over the course of three years (2024-2027), this funding will go towards strengthening basic services, such as education and health, with the understanding that Lebanon will, in turn, prevent people, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees and Lebanese citizens, from attempting to reach European shores. Parts of the funding will be invested in equipment, training, and infrastructure necessary for the security agencies to control the Lebanese land and maritime borders.[1] Announcing the deal, von der Leyen declared that “We count on your good cooperation to prevent illegal migration and combat migrant smuggling”.[2]

The announcement of the EU aid package comes amid a rapid increase in people traversing the around 160 km that separates Lebanon and Cyprus. In the first three months of 2024, more than 2,000 Syrian refugees made the perilous journey from Lebanon to Cyprus, compared to just 78 in the same period the year before.[3] After 350 people had arrived during two days in April, Cyprus announced that it would suspend the processing of asylum applications for Syrian nationals, describing the situation as “unsustainable”.[4] In the months leading up to the aid announcement, the Cypriot government took a leading role in advocating the EU to strike a deal with Lebanon similar to those with Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt.[5] Lebanon, on the other hand, had stopped accepting migrant returns from Cyprus, despite an informal bilateral agreement that it would do so.[6] Recently, the country had also issued threats to cease intercepting boats heading towards Europe altogether, unless more financial support was channeled to the country.[7]

Although Lebanon is said to host the world’s largest refugee population in proportion to its population size, attempts to cross into Europe from Lebanese shores have until recently remained few. As the economic situation in the country continues to deteriorate and the pressure placed on Syrians to return has been increasing continuously, however, Lebanon seems to be emerging as a site of illegalized migration towards Europe, with both refugees and Lebanese citizens leaving the country. UNHCR notes a sharp increase in boats departing from Lebanon, recording 59 boats between January and late April 2024, compared to 65 boats in all of 2023.[8]

The aid package to Lebanon is the latest of a series of “cash-for-migrant” agreements negotiated between the EU and countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt, and fits within the broader trend of externalizing migration control to Europe’s southern neighbors. The aid package promised to Lebanon builds on previous cooperation between the two parties and is a continuation of the financial assistance the country has received for hosting an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees since the outbreak of the Syrian war, arguably a pay-off to discourage onward migration toward Europe.[9] Since 2011, Lebanon has received funds amounting to EUR 3 billion, with EUR 2.6 billion directly to support Syrian refugees and host communities.[10]  Often framed as enhancing the resilience of both refugee and host communities in Lebanon, this type of humanitarian funding can be seen as “soft externalization”, or as part of a “humanitarian border”.[11]

In response and anticipation of increased migration from Lebanon, recent years have seen an increase of externalization efforts. Through various projects and initiatives, Lebanese security agencies have received more direct assistance, equipment, and trainings from the EU and its member states, as well as UN agencies and other international organizations.[12] Such a boosting of the capacity of Lebanese security agencies to conduct patrolling and interceptions of migrant boats since 2021 indicates a hardening of the externalized border, with the EU aid package thus pushing Lebanon further in this direction.

Signing off on human rights infringements?

Agreements in which Europe’s southern neighbors are enlisted to undertake border control for the EU have sparked outrage among human rights organizations as they “expose individuals to human rights risks, erode asylum protection and undermine the international protection system as a whole.“[13] These concerns are indeed not unsubstantiated. The EU-Lebanon deal came at a point when Lebanese authorities continue to target Syrians with rampant crackdowns. Over the years, Syrians have experienced curfews, evictions, and arrests in Lebanon, as they have been subjected to a raft of restrictive and discriminatory policies aimed at encouraging their return to Syria.[14] Moreover, they are routinely blamed for the country’s economic downfall and confronted with dehumanizing outbursts from politicians and local authorities. These hostilities were reignited following the April 2024 assassination of Pascal Sleiman, a leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, whose body was found in Syria. Since then, the security of Syrians in Lebanon has further deteriorated, with a rise in harassment and violent attacks.[15]

Human rights organizations have also warned that the financial assistance to Lebanon is likely to lead to forced return of Syrian refugees, which may in turn make Lebanon and the EU complicit in violations of the principle of non-refoulement.[16] Lebanon has ramped up summary deportations since a 2019 Higher Defense Council called for the deportation of Syrians who had entered irregularly after April 2019 or could not prove that they had entered prior to this date, without due process.[17] According to Legal Agenda, a Lebanese research and advocacy organization, the Lebanese Armed Forces deported and pushed back more than 13,000 Syrians in 2023, with this number amounting to 1,400 in the first six months of 2024.[18] Deportations carried out in recent years have included refugees registered with UNHCR, opposition activists and army defectors, as well as Syrian refugees rescued at sea.[19] Moreover, in 2022, the Lebanese government started implementing a plan to facilitate the so-called “voluntary” return of 15,000 Syrian refugees per month, coordinated with the Syrian government, to designated “safe” areas in Syria.[20] The voluntariness of this return program is certainly questionable, as coercive policies leave Syrians with few other options but to leave Lebanon.

The UN and other organizations have stressed that the conditions in Syria are such that the safe return of refugees is impossible, and that risks of human rights violations upon return are lingering, including arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, and persecution.[21] Despite this, in announcing the financial assistance, von der Leyen signaled a possible shift in the EU’s assessment of returns. Part of the 1-billion-euro package will go into “exploring how to work on a more structured approach to voluntary returns to Syria”.[22] This statement might embolden the return ambitions of Lebanese authorities, which have long advocated for declaring large parts of Syria safe for return. In the view of Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, most Syrians in Lebanon are economic migrants rather than refugees and should return to Syria.[23] Similarly, Cyprus has in recent years called on the EU to re-evaluate which areas of Syria can be declared safe and free from armed conflict, for eventually returning Syrian nationals to so-called safe zones. Shortly after the aid deal was announced, Cyprus brought together the governments of seven EU member states in a joint statement saying that conditions in Syria should be reassessed to allow voluntary refugee returns. The statements aims to lead to “more effective ways of handling” Syrian refugees attempting to reach the EU.[24]

Externalizing border governance

A considerable share of the EU package will be invested in the border control capacities of Lebanese security agencies. Similar to partner countries of other EU border cooperation deals, Lebanese authorities have a track record of violent border patrolling. In April 2022, a boat carrying 84 people destined to Europe capsized after being intercepted by the Lebanese navy.[25] Of the Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian passengers, only 47 people were rescued. Seven bodies were recovered from the sea, while the rest remain missing to this day. Whereas Lebanese officials blamed the sinking on smugglers overcrowding the boat, servers testified in several media outlets that what happened to them was directly caused by the navy vessel ramming the migrant boat before moving away while it sank.[26] Witnesses have reported on one of the passengers having been arrested after being rescued from the sinking vessel; his whereabouts are unknown.[27]

Financial assistance to the Lebanese security agencies will certainly contribute to more such interceptions, as their boosted control capacity is already visible in increased patrol and interception activity in recent years. The risk of human rights violations associated with the EU-Lebanon aid package is further exacerbated by the lack of legal accountability inherent in such migration deals. Because of their informal and non-binding nature, agreements that enlist third countries as gatekeepers commonly lack public, parliamentary, and judicial oversight in the EU and partner countries. The financial assistance EU has offered to Lebanon follows the blueprint laid out in previous arrangements with Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. Commenting on the deal reached with Lebanon, Peter Stano, European Commission spokesperson, specified that no written agreement had been signed but that “it is likely to be accepted by the Council as the EU member states had been informed in advance about the visit”.[28] He further said that it was referring to conclusions by the Commission, in which continued financial support for Lebanon to deal with migration control was provided. As such, the aid package is symptomatic of the rise of informal, soft law policy tools in migration control that evade the EU’s responsibilities towards people on the move.[29]

The lack of transparency and legal certainty surrounding these deals may ultimately prevent judicial review. In 2017, the CJEU declared that it lacked jurisdiction to review the legality of the EU-Turkey statement, because it had not been concluded by the EU.[30] Here, the European Council, the Council of the EU, as well as the European Commission denied any involvement in negotiating the deal, and claimed that the EU-Turkey statement was merely “a political arrangement “, and “not intended to produce legally binding effects nor constitute an agreement or a treaty.”[31] This conclusion certainly sets a worrying example for the EU-Lebanon deal.

More than a transaction: pointers for future research on the EU-Lebanon deal

There is a thinly veiled contradiction between the EU objective to contain movement towards Europe and Lebanon’s clear intention to keep Syrians outside its borders. Research on EU border externalization has tended to a Eurocentric stance, fixating on aid as a currency to ‘buy’ the cooperation of third states located along Europe’s border. In more recent literature, scholars have also highlighted the leverage which countries of ‘origin’ and ‘transit’ possess towards their northern counterparts, by the sheer presence of ‘undesirable’ populations within their borders. Yet, as Gazzotti has noted, such simplistic accounts fail to look beyond an incentive/rent dynamic, to understand the many ways in which states in the South maneuver aid in their multilateral and domestic affairs.[32] States in the Global South are not merely recipients of European policies, they have their own agendas for assisting or resisting externalization goals.[33] In Lebanon, discussions following the aid announcement shed some light on the contestation that is likely to shape the outcome of the EU-Lebanon cooperation.

In the weeks that have passed since its announcement, the EU-Lebanon deal has sparked controversy on several fronts. Some actors have expressed concern that the EU assistance will prop up a corrupt elite, by providing financial assistance without any conditions regarding the implementation of political and economic reforms.[34] After the Beirut port blast in 2020, the EU initiated sanctions targeting politicians accused of corruption, recognizing their role in the country’s political and economic crisis. This deal, however, some commentators fear, will solidify the grip of the same corrupt elites.[35]

Among Lebanese political parties, the aid package lay bare conflicting positions on the country’s ties to Syria. Syria’s Assad regime is seeking normalization with Lebanon to move forward on cooperating over organized, large-scale repatriation of Syrian citizens. While all political fractions seem to agree on the urgency of Syrian return, their stance on Assad’s regime differ. Allies of the regime, such as Hezbollah, are in favor of normalizing ties with the Syrian president; in a speech given shortly after the aid announcement, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah insisted that “If sanctions on Syria aren’t lifted, there will be no return of refugees”.[36]

Interim Prime Minister Mikati, with a slightly different focus, but already at the press conference where the aid package was unveiled, emphasized Lebanon’s unwillingness to indefinably host Syrians, whom he considered a burden and threat to the country’s security. Subtly alluding to Lebanon’s rentier leverage, he declared that if Syrians were to use Lebanon as a transit country, “any blowup related to the issue of displaced persons will not be limited to Lebanon but will extend to Europe to become a regional and international crisis”.[37]

Reactions from politicians across the political spectrum suggest that cooperating with the EU on migration containment might not be smooth sailing. Several have dismissed the aid package as a bribe for the authorities to keep Syrians within Lebanon’s borders. Emblematic of this position are statements from Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil, in which he accuses the European Commission of a “a desire to replace the Lebanese people with Syrian refugees, to change the identity of the people and the territory”. Contending that “Lebanon doesn’t need money, but a political decision to send Syrians home”, he restated that “the Lebanese territory and people are not for sale, nor for rent”.[38] Several MPs from opposition group Forces of Change aligned with this criticism, insisting that Lebanon must develop a “strategy to organize the safe return” of Syrians to Syria.[39] Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has gone further in calling for the Lebanese parliament to “open the sea” to “anyone who wants to leave for Europe, for Cyprus.”[40] Resorting to what might resemble blackmailing of the EU, he suggested that “If we do that, the EU will not give us 1 billion, but 20 billion, and maybe 30”, as well as being forced to “lift the embargo on Syria”.[41]

In a parliament session following the announcement, Mikati addressed the bribe allegations, and claimed that there were no strings attached to the aid package. He further stressed that no agreement had been signed, and that the assistance was rather a continuation of previous aid. Seeking to reassure critics, he stressed that the assistance would not be directed at Syrian refugees in the country but rather was meant to encourage them “to return to their country and not to remain in”.[42] He also claimed to have expressed to von der Leyen and the Cypriot president during their visit “that Lebanon cannot be considered a border police for any country.”[43]

The promised assistance seems to have emboldened Lebanon’s return ambitions. Shortly after the aid announcement, the Lebanese parliament agreed on establishing a ministerial committee tasked with devising a strategic plan for coordinated repatriation, in collaboration with the Syrian government.[44] In a parliament address, Prime minister Mikati emphasized that all illegal residents were to be deported, although reliant on the coordination with UNHCR. He also said that security services were closing illegal crossing points and confiscating the money used by smugglers.[45]

Conclusion and Outlook

The EU seeking Lebanon’s help in stemming unwelcome migration is certainly problematic for its violations of migrants’ rights. But it might also defeat its own end. As several commentators have noted, financial assistance to Lebanon’s security forces might pressure more people to embark on dangerous sea crossings. The financial support is likely to bolster Lebanon’s return ambition and enhance the capabilities of security agencies to surveil, arrest and deport Syrians residing in the country. Indeed, in a number of testimonies by Lebanese human rights organizations, Syrian refugees link their willingness to attempt migrating to Europe to their inability to remain in Lebanon.[46] As such, the EU-Lebanon deal might not only further endanger refugees in Lebanon, but at the same time prove futile for curbing their movement towards Europe. In the research on this deal that is surely to come, it is therefore necessary to extend beyond a transactional incentive/rent binary. Immediate reactions to the deal in Lebanon have already made clear that the country will not be a passive recipient of EU’s policies, so whether this collaboration will sink or float depends on how Lebanon will maneuver the deal to assist or resist EU’s externalization agenda.

Footnotes

[1] European Commission, “Press Statement by the President in Beirut,” Text, European Commission, May 2, 2024, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_24_2421.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Dario Sabaghi, “Will the EU Strike a New Anti-Migration Deal with Lebanon?,” https://www.newarab.com/ (The New Arab, April 16, 2024), https://www.newarab.com/analysis/will-eu-strike-new-anti-migration-deal-lebanon.

[4] Michele Kambas, “Cyprus Suspends Syrian Asylum Applications as It Struggles with Arrivals Spike,” L’Orient Today, April 15, 2024, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1410339/update-1-cyprus-suspends-syrian-asylum-applications-as-it-struggles-with-arrivals-spike.html.

[5] DW, “EU Funnels Aid to Lebanon amid Syria Migrant Surge to Cyprus – DW – 05/02/2024,” dw.com, May 2, 2024, https://www.dw.com/en/eu-funnels-aid-to-lebanon-amid-syria-migrant-surge-to-cyprus/a-68975405.

[6] Andria Kades, “Lebanon No Longer Accepting Migrant Returns from Cyprus,” Cyprus Mail, April 5, 2024, https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/04/05/lebanon-no-longer-accepting-migrant-returns-from-cyprus/.

[7] DW, “EU Funnels Aid to Lebanon amid Syria Migrant Surge to Cyprus – DW – 05/02/2024.”

[8] Abby Sewell, “EU Announces 1 Billion Euros in Aid for Lebanon amid a Surge in Irregular Migration | AP News,” AP News, May 2, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-cyprus-eu-migration-europe-8639a76924445f2d2494684bc8e3b649.

[9] Rawan Arar, “The New Grand Compromise: How Syrian Refugees Changed the Stakes in the Global Refugee Assistance Regime,” Middle East Law and Governance 9, no. 3 (November 11, 2017): 298–312, https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-00903007; Tamirace Fakhoury and Nora Stel, “Reconsidering Resilience: The EU and Premature Refugee Returns in Lebanon,” Report, Reconsidering Resilience (Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, June 20, 2022).

[10] European Commission, “Lebanon,” European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), May 2, 2024, https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/european-neighbourhood-policy/countries-region/lebanon_en.

[11] Paolo Cuttitta, “Non-Governmental/Civil Society Organisations and the European Union-Externalisation of Migration Management in Tunisia and Egypt,” Population, Space and Place 26, no. 7 (2020): e2329, https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2329; Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives (Verso Books, 2022).

[12] Lebanese Centre for Human Rights, “European Policies of Border Externalization in Lebanon: Securitization of Migration Management and Systematic Huamn Rights Violations,” July 2023, https://www.cldh-lebanon.org/HumanRightsBrie/d7b6f624-152a-4c1b-bb0b-95302da0c1cb_European%20Policies%20of%20Border%20Externalisation%20in%20Lebanon%20-%20CLDH%20Report%20%20-%20July%202023.pdf.

[13] Amnesty International, “Lebanon: Respect International Law in EU-Lebanon Migration Deal,” Amnesty International, May 2, 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde18/8009/2024/en/.

[14] Maja Janmyr, “Precarity in Exile: The Legal Status of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 35, no. 4 (December 1, 2016): 58–78, https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdw016; Lama Mourad, “‘Standoffish’ Policy-Making: Inaction and Change in the Lebanese Response to the Syrian Displacement Crisis,” Middle East Law and Governance 9, no. 3 (November 11, 2017): 249–66, https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-00903005.

[15] Nada Maucourant Atallah, “Attacks against Syrians in Lebanon Surge after Killing of Christian Party Official,” The National, April 12, 2024, https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/04/12/syrians-lebanon-attacks-lebanese-forces-pascal-sleiman/.

[16] Amnesty International, “Lebanon,” May 2, 2024.

[17] Legal Agenda, “Forced Deportations to Syria: Rights Organizations Call on Lebanon to Respect the Rule of Law,” Legal Agenda (blog), June 23, 2019, https://english.legal-agenda.com/forced-deportations-to-syria-rights-organizations-call-on-lebanon-to-respect-the-rule-of-law/; The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, “Nightmare Realized: Syrians Face Mass Forced Deportations from Lebanon,” May 24, 2023, https://timep.org/2023/05/24/nightmare-realized-syrians-face-mass-forced-deportations-from-lebanon/.

[18] Legal Agenda, “Joint Statement: Lebanon Must End Practices of Refoulement and Torture,” Legal Agenda (blog), June 25, 2024, https://english.legal-agenda.com/joint-statement-lebanon-must-end-practices-of-refoulement-and-torture/ .

[19] Abby Sewell, “Saved from Death at Sea, Syrian Refugees Face Deportation,” AP News, January 18, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/politics-political-refugees-lebanon-4cd018738c42d7d3be499093ebaba67b; Human Rights Watch, “Lebanon: Armed Forces Summarily Deporting Syrians,” July 5, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/05/lebanon-armed-forces-summarily-deporting-syrians; Cedar Centre For Legal Studies, “Disappearance of a Syrian in Lebanon Sparks Concern,” February 12, 2024, https://ccls-lebanon.org/disappearance-of-a-syrian-in-lebanon-sparks-concern/; Legal Agenda, “Joint Statement.”

[20] Are John Knudsen and Robert Forster, “EFFEXT Background Paper – National and International Migration Policy in Lebanon,” CMI – Chr. Michelsen Institute, accessed May 22, 2024, https://www.cmi.no/publications/8589-national-and-international-migration-policy-in-lebanon.

[21] OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, “Syrian Returnees Subjected to ‘Gross Human Rights Violations and Abuses’, UN Report Details,” OHCHR, February 13, 2024, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/syrian-returnees-subjected-gross-human-rights-violations-and-abuses-un; OCHA, “Syrian Arab Republic: 2024 Humanitarian Needs Overview (February 2024) – Syrian Arab Republic | ReliefWeb,” March 3, 2024, https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syrian-arab-republic-2024-humanitarian-needs-overview-february-2024.

[22] European Commission, “Press Statement by the President in Beirut.”

[23] M Apelblat, “EU Announces Financial Assistance for Lebanon with Focus on Support to Return of Syrian Refugees,” The Brussels Times, May 2, 2024, https://www.brusselstimes.com/1030677/eu-announces-financial-assistance-for-lebanon-with-focus-on-support-to-return-of-syrian-refugees.

[24] Menelaos Hadjicostis, “7 EU Members Say Conditions in Syria Should Be Reassessed to Allow Voluntary Refugee Returns | AP News,” June 7, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/migrants-refugees-syria-eu-lebanon-safe-zones-returns-3b52a8b2d55acb6838c1e34916638f4b.

[25] The New Arab, “Tripoli Boat Tragedy: Wreckage Found alongside 11 Bodies,” The New Arab (The New Arab, September 14, 2022), https://www.newarab.com/features/tripoli-boat-tragedy-wreckage-found-alongside-11-bodies.

[26] Amnesty International, “Joint Letter Calling on the Lebanese Authorities for an Independent, Impartial, and Transparent Investigation into the Causes of the Recent Shipwreck off the Coast of Tripoli,” Amnesty International, May 13, 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde18/5599/2022/en/.

[27] MENA Rights Group, “Disappearance of Lebanese National after the April 23 Shipwreck off the Coast of Tripoli,” April 23, 2022, https://menarights.org/en/case/hashem-muthlej.

[28] Apelblat, “EU Announces Financial Assistance for Lebanon with Focus on Support to Return of Syrian Refugees.”

[29] Katharina Natter, “Reinventing a Broken Wheel: What the EU-Tunisia Deal Reveals over Europe’s Migration Cooperation,” Verfassungsblog, September 5, 2023, https://verfassungsblog.de/reinventing-a-broken-wheel/.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Narin Idriz, “Taking the EU-Turkey Deal to Court?,” Verfassungsblog, December 20, 2017, https://doi.org/10.17176/20171220-100943.

[32] Lorena Gazzotti, “(Un)Making Illegality: Border Control, Racialized Bodies and Differential Regimes of Illegality in Morocco,” The Sociological Review 69, no. 2 (March 1, 2021): 1, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026120982273.

[33] Maggy Lee, “The Externalization of Border Control in the Global South: The Cases of Malaysia and Indonesia,” Theoretical Criminology 26, no. 4 (November 1, 2022): 537–56, https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221104867; Inken Bartels, The International Organization for Migration in North Africa: Making International Migration Management (London: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003204169; Cuttitta, “Non-Governmental/Civil Society Organisations and the European Union-Externalisation of Migration Management in Tunisia and Egypt”; Lorena Gazzotti, “Terrain of Contestation: Complicating the Role of Aid in Border Diplomacy between Europe and Morocco,” International Political Sociology 16, no. 4 (October 11, 2022): olac021, https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olac021.

[34] Jack Dutton, “Fears Mount EU’s $1.1B Migration Aid to Lebanon Will Feed Political Corruption – Al-Monitor: Independent, Trusted Coverage of the Middle East,” May 10, 2024, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/05/fears-mount-eus-11b-migration-aid-lebanon-will-feed-political-corruption.

[35] Elia J. Ayoub, “The EU’s 1 Billion-Euro Gift Will Hurt Lebanon and Its People,” Al Jazeera, June 11, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/6/11/the-eus-1-billion-euro-gift-will-hurt-lebanon-and-its-people.

[36] Salah Hijazi, “Migration Crisis: Lebanon’s False Dilemma,” L’Orient Today, May 15, 2024, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1413881/migration-crisis-lebanons-false-dilemma.html.

[37] Marion MacGregor, “European Union Announces Aid Package for Lebanon,” InfoMigrants, May 2, 2024, https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/56825/european-union-announces-aid-package-for-lebanon.

[38] L’Orient Today, “Lebanon Doesn’t Need Money, but a Political Decision to Send Syrians Home, Bassil Says,” L’Orient Today, May 4, 2024, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1412591/lebanon-doesnt-need-money-but-a-political-decision-to-send-syrians-home-bassil-says.html.

[39] L’Orient Today.

[40] Philenews In-Cyprus, “Hezbollah Leader Urges Lebanon to Let Syrian Refugees Sail to Europe,” June 28, 2024, https://in-cyprus.philenews.com/local/hezbollah-leader-urges-lebanon-to-let-syrian-refugees-sail-to-europe/.

[41] Hijazi, “Migration Crisis.”

[42] L’Orient Today, “Mikati: €1 Billion EU Deal to Increase Once Reforms Are Passed,” L’Orient Today, May 15, 2024, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1413877/mikati-eur1-billion-eu-deal-to-increase-once-reforms-are-passed.html.

[43] L’Orient Today.

[44] Legal Agenda, “Joint Statement.”

[45] L’Orient Today, “Mikati: €1 Billion EU Deal to Increase Once Reforms Are Passed,” L’Orient Today, May 15, 2024, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1413877/mikati-eur1-billion-eu-deal-to-increase-once-reforms-are-passed.html.

[46] ACHR, “THE RISKS AND PERILS OF AN EU-LEBANON MIGRATION DEAL – BRIEFING PAPER – ‘وصول’ – ACHR,” May 3, 2024, https://www.achrights.org/en/2024/05/03/13462/.