150 Lebanese refugee families prepare to return home from Iraq: Baghdad migration ministry

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 150 Lebanese refugee families are still in Iraq, with most of them having returned home following last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah, Iraq’s migration ministry told Rudaw on Monday.

"Of the Lebanese families who sought refuge in Iraq and registered with our ministry, about 150 families remain [in Iraq] to return home,” ministry spokesperson Ali Jahangir told Rudaw.

Earlier in January, another spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry, Ali Abbas, told Rudaw that about half of the 20,000 Lebanese refugees who fled to Iraq late last year had returned home, totaling more than 11,000 people at the time.

“More than 6,000 Lebanese citizens have returned to their country on board 39 flights through Iraqi Airways,” Jahangir then said, adding that others had traveled back via land routes.

Baghdad welcomed the Lebanese refugees as “guests of Iraq.” A large majority of them stayed in the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf south of the country, where they received aid and relief from Iraqi and religious authorities.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict began on October 8, a day after the outbreak of war in Gaza between Tel Aviv and Hamas, when the Lebanese group opened a “back-up front” from southern Lebanon in support of its Palestinian allies.

Tensions escalated further in mid-September after Israel launched the “Pagers Operation,” remotely detonating communication devices used by Hezbollah members. This was followed by an airstrike in a residential neighborhood of Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah.

A late November ceasefire brokered by the United States between Israel and Hezbollah allowed thousands of Lebanese refugees to return home.

Amin Salam, Lebanon’s former economy minister, told Rudaw in February that the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah caused an estimated $25-30 billion in economic losses for Lebanon.

150 Lebanese refugee families prepare to return home from Iraq: Baghdad migration ministry

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