Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am
Speaker 1: when Hesbola's leader has Sonsrala was killed in Beirut over
Speaker 1: the weekend. Michelle de Massi felt the blast from her apartment.
Speaker 1: Michelle's an Australian journalist and she's been in the city
Speaker 1: for a few months working there. Now as Israeli a
Speaker 1: Strax continue, She's preparing to leave Lebanon, likely by plane,
Speaker 1: but for a million people who could be forced to
Speaker 1: flee their homes, that calculation of where to go and
Speaker 1: how to get out is much more complicated. Today Michelle
Speaker 1: Jasmine de Massi on the reality of life in Lebanon
Speaker 1: right now and why thousands of people, including Syrian refugees,
Speaker 1: are fleeing back into Syria. It's Tuesday, October one, So Michelle,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you so much for speaking with
Speaker 1: me today. Bayroot is right now experiencing some of the
Speaker 1: heaviest air strikes we've seen from the Israeli ARMI in
Speaker 1: recent years. So tell me what it is like to
Speaker 1: be there on the ground right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right now, the situation's pretty tense.
Speaker 3: Everyone's really quite panicked and worried about what is going
Speaker 3: to happen. Many people are fleeing the country at the moment.
Speaker 3: So overall the situation is it's pretty dire. It's one
Speaker 3: of the largest mass displacements that Lebanon's ever seen.
Speaker 1: And so when you talk to people in Beirut right now,
Speaker 1: what is the tone of those conversations and what's the feeling.
Speaker 3: So most people are saying they're very, very afraid right now.
Speaker 3: They don't know what the future holds. People have really
Speaker 3: bad memories of what happened in two and six when
Speaker 3: there was a ground invasion in the south of Lebanon.
Speaker 3: But after the pager attacks that happened a week and
Speaker 3: a half ago, people quite traumatized from that as well.
Speaker 3: You know, that was something that had never ever happened
Speaker 3: before in Lebanon and anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: So I think the.
Speaker 3: Unpredictability of the situation is adding to a lot of
Speaker 3: the panic. And not to mention that on Friday night,
Speaker 3: Hesbela's leader, Hassan Astrala, was assassinated. Hasbala has confirmed the
Speaker 3: death of its leader, Hassan Israela.
Speaker 2: It's like reverberated through all of the city.
Speaker 3: And when that happened, you know, I was even here
Speaker 3: in my apartment, I could feel that the whole house
Speaker 3: shook and we all ran outside. When I got outside,
Speaker 3: I could see all my neighbors on the balcony and
Speaker 3: everyone was just thinking what has happened?
Speaker 1: And last week the Australian government told Australians in Lebanon
Speaker 1: to leave. So I would again say to any Australian
Speaker 1: and none, please leave, Please leave by whatever means are available,
Speaker 1: whilst they route airport is still open. Can you walk
Speaker 1: me through what their advice was and what help is
Speaker 1: being offered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's over fifteen thousand Australians here in Lebanon,
Speaker 3: so the first advice was please leave while there are
Speaker 3: commercial airlines accessible to Lea And then what we've seen
Speaker 3: now is, you know, over thirty airlines have actually canceled
Speaker 3: operations here. So really all that's left is a local carrier,
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern Airlines, and the flights are completely booked out.
Speaker 3: You know, yesterday when I called Middle Eastern Airlines, they
Speaker 3: said there's not a flight anywhere until the fifteenth of October.
Speaker 3: So yesterday when the email was sent out by the
Speaker 3: Australian Embassy from their consular section, it was saying please
Speaker 3: take the last commercial flight, but that's obviously very challenging
Speaker 3: for people right now. They said that, you know, they're
Speaker 3: working with airline carriers to make more seats of aailable
Speaker 3: and that people should be ready to go should that happen.
Speaker 2: We're not at a point yet.
Speaker 3: Where there's evacuation flights taking place. And also the other
Speaker 3: advice was try to take a ferry. There's a fairy
Speaker 3: leaving from Tripoli and Lebanon to Turkey as another means
Speaker 3: of transportation. But the advice is very clear right now
Speaker 3: to leave the country while the airport is still open.
Speaker 1: And so what does all of that mean for you, Michelle,
Speaker 1: what are you planning on doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I've been here as a journalist all summer.
Speaker 3: For me as well, I think it's time to leave
Speaker 3: this week. I'm making my own plans to accept the
Speaker 3: country as well. You know, it's a really sad situation
Speaker 3: to be in.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm someone.
Speaker 3: Who is privileged enough that I can leave, but you know,
Speaker 3: right now there is thousands of Lebanese people that cannot leave,
Speaker 3: and Lebanon is home to over one and a half
Speaker 3: million Syrian refugees as well. So you know, these are
Speaker 3: people that cannot necessarily easily leave the country, But for me,
Speaker 3: as a Westerner, I will make plans to leave very soon.
Speaker 2: After the break.
Speaker 1: Michelle takes us to the border where thousands of Syrian
Speaker 1: refugees are fleeing back into Syria. Michelle, in the last
Speaker 1: couple of days, you've been at the Lebanon Syria border
Speaker 1: speaking with people who are trying to get out of Lebanon.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about your journey there?
Speaker 2: Yes, So, the.
Speaker 3: Journey from Bainbrute to the border, it's a border town
Speaker 3: called Masna, took me about one and a half hour's drive.
Speaker 2: On that day.
Speaker 3: Cars were banked up for you know, in very very
Speaker 3: long queues. People were waiting for hours, if not into
Speaker 3: days to cross into the border. So it's extremely chaotic.
Speaker 3: There was a sense of you know, panic and anxiety
Speaker 3: in the air about what was going to happen. People
Speaker 3: didn't want to leave, but you know, it was just
Speaker 3: a mass migration of people. Over thirty thousand people have
Speaker 3: crossed into that border at the moment.
Speaker 2: People were going with their very few belongings.
Speaker 3: That they had, and yeah, UNHCR has stated that eighty
Speaker 3: percent of them are Syrians, so Syrian refugees that are returning,
Speaker 3: which is the first time we've seen this reverse flow
Speaker 3: of migration back into Syria since the war there, and
Speaker 3: around twenty percent are Lebanese.
Speaker 2: So when I was there, it was.
Speaker 3: A case of basically two two border crossings. Right. There
Speaker 3: was a formal one which Lebanese were able to go
Speaker 3: through with their passports, and then for Syrians, many of
Speaker 3: them don't have passports, they're undocumented, so what they were
Speaker 3: doing they couldn't actually go through the legal way of
Speaker 3: the crossing. They were using an irregular route. People were
Speaker 3: basically paying I would say, you know, a smuggler of
Speaker 3: sorts to transport their belongings in cars who were going through.
Speaker 3: So there were empty cars going through, and then people
Speaker 3: were taking an irregular route by foot and having to walk,
Speaker 3: you know, at least a kilometer through this border crossing
Speaker 3: with no passports.
Speaker 1: And what did they say to you when you asked
Speaker 1: them about their situation at the moment.
Speaker 3: So there was a mixture of Syrians and Lebanese people
Speaker 3: there that I did meet. I spoke to one Palestinian man,
Speaker 3: a man called Najib, and he was there with his
Speaker 3: young family. He'd escaped the bombings in a tier that
Speaker 3: had taken place, and he actually was a Palestine and
Speaker 3: refugee that had been living in Syria and then he
Speaker 3: had fled the Syrian war and had come to Lebanon,
Speaker 3: and now he was actually having to flee back to Syria.
Speaker 3: He was saying, you know, we we want to live,
Speaker 3: We want to live. Akman. I also met with another lady, Malia,
Speaker 3: who was there with her five.
Speaker 2: Children, had my name in Dagospa.
Speaker 3: She'd come from Balbach, which had also experienced bombardments, and
Speaker 3: she said that was bombing going on all around her homes.
Speaker 3: So she'd taken her five kids across the border. And
Speaker 3: she was saying that she was hoping that the war
Speaker 3: would only go for two weeks, but she said she
Speaker 3: didn't know what was going to happen, and her life
Speaker 3: was really quite unstable right now.
Speaker 1: And so can you tell me a bit more than
Speaker 1: for those who are unable to leave Lebanon right now?
Speaker 1: What is life like at the moment?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so right now, if you go, you know, walk
Speaker 3: down to downtown bea route, you will see a lot
Speaker 3: of people sleeping in in the parks on the people
Speaker 3: have got pieces of styrofoam that they're using, as you know,
Speaker 3: makeshift beds and shelters, so there's really nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: People are sleeping in their cars and.
Speaker 3: Across the country right now, most of the schools are closed,
Speaker 3: so the schools have actually had to convert into emergency shelters.
Speaker 3: The other day, I went to one of the emergency
Speaker 3: shelter schools in Burhassan here in Beirute, and many Lebanese
Speaker 3: had come out to volunteer. I started yesterday and I
Speaker 3: spent like five hours here.
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe more like you more than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they needed an extra hand, so I'm helping out.
Speaker 3: I think people are actually wanting to keep busy right
Speaker 3: now because of just the stress and the worry. So
Speaker 3: at the emergency shelter, I spoke to Lebanese people, including
Speaker 3: women and even young teenage girls who were all in
Speaker 3: the kitchen cooking that were preparing like over two thousand
Speaker 3: meals a day to go out to this school. It
Speaker 3: was people sheltering the school, and yeah, there was volunteers
Speaker 3: actually coordinating games for the kids. We've seen cases of
Speaker 3: Lebanese opening up their homes to people that are being
Speaker 3: displaced there's WhatsApp groups that are running, you know, for
Speaker 3: people that might need to find a home.
Speaker 2: To stay in. So, you know, in amongst.
Speaker 3: What is a really pretty sad backdrop, there's people that
Speaker 3: are actually trying to make a difference here and do
Speaker 3: whatever they can support other people that have been displaced.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling good that I'm being able to help and
Speaker 2: helpfully things will get better. So, like, we have high
Speaker 2: hostage life.
Speaker 1: And last week the idea so that it was preparing
Speaker 1: for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. So how is
Speaker 1: the country preparing for that possibility.
Speaker 3: Well, right now we have a caretaker government, so that's
Speaker 3: actually probably made things a lot more complicated. After the
Speaker 3: pager attacks and this ongoing bombardments. You know, hospitals are
Speaker 3: already at full capacity, so this is really really concerning
Speaker 3: as to how they would be able to manage more
Speaker 3: mass casualties. So, you know, it's really unclear how they're
Speaker 3: going to manage this situation. Just in the early hours
Speaker 3: of this morning today, there was another strike which was
Speaker 3: actually in central Beirute.
Speaker 2: We haven't seen that before. This is the first time
Speaker 2: it's happened, and.
Speaker 3: People are hearing that the Israeli troops are on the
Speaker 3: border right now in the south and that it's likely
Speaker 3: that a ground invasion will happen. So this is really
Speaker 3: causing a lot of distress for people.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I wish you the best for the next
Speaker 1: few days and weeks.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Ruby, it's nice to speak with you
Speaker 2: as well. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke
Speaker 1: has threatened to cancel the visas of anyone in citing
Speaker 1: discord in the community. The comments come after protests across
Speaker 1: Australia against Israeli attacks on Lebanon, where small groups of
Speaker 1: people in attendance carried Hezbola flags. The Federal Opposition is
Speaker 1: calling for police to charge anyone identified to be holding
Speaker 1: the Hesbola flag. And the manjailed for kidnapping a four
Speaker 1: year old girl from a campsite in Western Australia has
Speaker 1: lost an appeal against his sentence. Terrence Darryl Kelly was
Speaker 1: attempting to have his thirteen year sentence reduced for the
Speaker 1: abduction of Cleo Smith from her family's campsite in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, which sparked one of the biggest police searchers
Speaker 1: in WA history. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven a m.
Speaker 2: See tomorrow Man.