The Lebanese Army checkpoints in the town are now similar to any other checkpoints outside of it. Soldiers have taken off the load of heavy armor and helmets and concern and caution in dealing with those arriving and passing cars are now gone. You no longer need an authorization or a friend there to visit Arsal. It is enough to drive there and visit without the fear experienced in previous years by those who managed to enter the town.
Military positions have also eased, having resembled barracks in their positioning around Arsal and its borders with the rest of the North Bekaa towns. For five years, the State had girdled Arsal with about 5,000 soldiers to protect it and its neighbors stretching from Labwa to Hermel, and passing through Fakiha, Ras Baalbek and Qaa.
Soldiers moving individually through Arsal’s streets and alleys has become a natural sight too. And then Arsal’s inhabitants are happy with the positions and patrols of the Army around their barren mountainous areas and on the peaks of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains range on the border with the Syrian Qalamun. These areas were previously occupied by armed ISIS and Nusra fighters and was forbidden to farmers from Arsal prior to the battle of The Dawn of the Juroud, which returned the land to its owners. All this points to Arsal being returned to the State in the full sense of the word. And yet…
A large lump in the throat mars the peace of this security breakthrough that has pleased the Syrians as much as the people of Arsal: the mines planted by ISIS and al-Nusra in a large part of Arsal lands before the liberation of the Juroud. Mines, which have until recently claimed the lives of 13 servicemen in the Lebanese army, farmers from Arsal and Syrians, in addition to seven wounded, including those left disabled by the amputation of a limb or impairment of its function. The army documented only five casualties.
The contaminated area is 120 square kilometers and constitutes about 30 percent of the area of Juroud Arsal and the lands of its farmers, according to the Lebanese Army, whose sources confirmed that minesweeping will begin in July to be followed after three months by mine clearance.
Arsal itself changed after the end of August 2017. Along with the convoys of armed fighters who were evacuated from the Juroud, about 10,000 Syrian refugees left the town. These were preceded by thousands more, even if in succession, and then they were also followed by individual families. This brought down the number of Syrian refugees in Arsal from about 120,000 to 60,000, including about 40,000 registered with the UNHCR.
The streets of Arsal have also changed. The cars with tinted glass disappeared, along with the pick-up vehicles that used to go about without registration plates. The armed fighters have left the streets forever. Motorbike traffic, which crowded alleys and roads, has dropped, and along with it clashes between passersby on the roads and between houses. Only the closely packed, door-to-door shops remain open. Most of these shops were opened by Syrians (about 500 shops), while other Syrians work in the shops owned by inhabitants of Arsal (about 150 shops).
The crossings between the town of Arsal and Juroud also betray positive change. After the battle of August 2014, the movement between Arsal and Juroud had stopped. The inhabitants of Arsal could not get to their lands, not even to the lowlands of Juroud (al-Wati), which is irrigated land for the most part. This has led to the drying of tree root mass, so gone were the summer and winter harvests, according to Abu Rabih al-Baridi, the only farmer from Arsal who did not leave his land during the years of crisis.
Juroud itself no longer requires a security clearance to get through the Army checkpoints that are still set up at the entrance to Arsal town. It is enough to say that you are going to visit so and so in the «wilderness», as the inhabitants of Arsal refer to Juroud. The soldier asks for your ID and records your car on a special logbook, and lets you go your way.
Abu Rabih expressed the relief of the farmers after the easing of the security measures and the deployment of the Army in all of Juroud Arsal, all the way to the Syrian border. «Juroud has returned to the State and the people of Arsal,» says Abu Rabih.
Bassel al-Hujairi, the mayor of Arsal, describes the situation as «very good», confirming that there is a sense of «a direct security improvement, just because of the liberation of Juroud along with the town of Arsal». «There has been an end sight of arms and illegal cars on the streets, and all manifestations of disruptions to peace and order and of breaking the law.»
Al-Hujairi adds: «This is consistent with the will of the people of Arsal who have long demanded the presence of the State, the Army and all the security forces with all their services in the town, and this was achieved thanks to the cooperation and determination of the inhabitants.» He confirmed that the State is building a police station, which is almost ready, in the place of the station that was occupied by the armed fighters the day the battle started in August.
The main problem that remains on the minds of the people of Arsal today, according to al-Hujairi, «is the mines and the lives lost to them». He called on the relevant State authorities and the Army to speed up the sweeping and clearance process «to return the livelihoods to the people and to put an end to death».
The joy of the people of Arsal was not complete because of the heavy burdens they have accumulated in recent years. «We lost our harvests in Juroud for five years, the quarries and the stone cutting work stopped, along with work in the transport sector, and there were no jobs, and this is something the people of Arsal were not used to,» says Khaled Al-Baridi.
Indeed, Arsal was the economic engine of North Bekaa. Its inhabitants had turned its barren hills into an oasis by planting about 4.75 million cherry, apricot and apple trees. The produce and harvests of the lowlands of Juroud were a major part of the agricultural sector.
According to al-Baridi, the quarries and stone cutting factories, along with about 200 vehicles for the transport of stone from Arsal across Lebanon, constituted a main source of livelihood that was as important and financially rewarding as agriculture, maybe even more so. In addition, trade on the border with Syria in the countryside of Qusayr, Homs and Badia al-Sham in the eastern range also created jobs for quite a number of inhabitants.
The State’s compensations for the loss of income by the inhabitants of Arsal, which it estimated at LBP 50 billion, was limited to LBP 10 billion disbursed last year. They do not avail against hunger. Abu Ahmed al-Fulaiti, a Juroud farmer, said he paid about USD 30,000 to revive his farm after he returned to find his farmhouse destroyed and his machinery pillaged. Even the fruit trees which he had cultivated for ten years and only made use of two harvests from, dried up because of lack of irrigation throughout the occupation of Juroud.
The Mayor also mentioned that farmers are unable to access large tracts of their lands. «Our lands have returned to us, but not all the lands because of mines.» He confirms that 150,000 fruit trees have dried out in Juroud, at the lowest estimate, and «we have 120 farmhouses completely destroyed». The armed fighters also felled the trees for use as heating in winter.
The battle in Arsal today is a «developmental» one, according to al-Hujairi. «There is a need to improve the infrastructure that serves the people of Arsal and about 50 to 60,000 refugees.» The mayor says that the roads are not suitable for traffic, the electricity grid requires maintenance and strengthening, as does the water supply network. And most importantly, there needs to be an initiative to solve the growing sanitation problem in the camps, which also affects the groundwater with 120 camps in the town.»
Al-Hujairi also brings up the situation of schools that have been operating on a double-shift basis since 2011 to accommodate Arsal students and refugees. «The equipment, seats, buildings and everything else has worn out because of the large numbers and the operation in the morning and afternoon.»
Coming out of a siege and a crisis cannot happen with just words and hoping, says al-Baridi, adding that the State has to reach out to Arsal for this to be a real and complete return. «The majority of the quarries and cutting factories have been destroyed and their vehicles were stolen, and the people of Arsal cannot resume their work without compensation,» he says.
Al-Hujairi points out to the great challenge facing the return of the stone from Arsal to the market with the same vigor as before. «There is great competition from Egyptian and Syrian stone, and the inhabitants of Arsal need time before they take back their share of the market.»
The relief relating to security witnessed by Arsal also reflected on the Syrians. Abu Ahmad al-Qari says that the presence of the armed fighters was as harmful for them as for the people of Arsal, and perhaps more harmful, recalling the many assassinations carried out by ISIS and al-Nusra fighters of Syrian refugees for flimsy reasons. «We were relieved with their departure, since Arsal was also relieved and we no longer felt that we were accused of any security incidents.»
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How a Mine Changes the Life of a Family
Yusuf al-Hujairi had missed his land, just like the rest of Arsal’s farmers. With the liberation of Juroud, al-Hujairi (Abu Ahmad) went to his grove in the al-Majar area in Juroud. Fattoum (Umm Ahmad), his wife, sat next to him in the passenger seat. In the back seat sat four of his grandchildren and his unmarried daughter.
As soon as Abu Ahmad arrived at his grove, he stopped his pick-up and asked his grandchildren and daughter to get off and start picking cherries. «You pick the cherries while I park the pick-up in the back,» he told them and drove off with Umm Ahmad.
Today Fattoum al-Hujairi says that she only remembers the sound of a powerful explosion. Then she came out of her coma to find herself hurled about ten meters from the house. Only the cries of her daughter and grandchildren could be heard. The mine killed Abu Ahmad immediately, hurling her and leaving her with two spinal fractures. The mine left her with burns in her face and eyes. Umm Ahmad began crawling a little and tried to walk a little to reach her daughter, who was wailing over her father and mother. «Nothing is left of my mother but small shivers,» said the girl to those who rushed to their aid. She had not seen her mother yet, who was blown away by the explosion.
With the death of Abu Ahmad by a landmine left by the armed fighters in Juroud, and the inability of Umm Ahmad to work, her son Khaled (18) left his studies and started working to support the family.
Umm Ahmad says that Khaled works day and night to cover her treatment. «I do not have coverage from the Ministry of Health, they did not even recognize the Ministry of Social Affairs card.» The woman, who choked on every word she was uttering, had already lost two sons. The first one died in a car crash and the second from a heart attack. «I had not married them off yet and not experienced that joy.»
The mine explosion left her with hypertension, chronic headaches and many scars on her face. «We demand that the State turns to us. We want to clear our Juroud of mines. I do not want to lose Khaled too.»
