Updates on the Situation in Syria and Lebanon
update: Southern Lebanon
February 12, 2025
We have received an update from our NESSL partners in Lebanon about Christian villages on Lebanon's southern border with Israel, heavily damaged by attacks by the IDF. Click here to read NESSL's report.
One of the affected pastors from the church in Alma al Chaab, Asis Rabih Taleb, reports his church stands, but the damage but to the area residences, other churches and farmlands is devastating.
The photos below showing the damages.
update: Syria
January 24, 2025
We would like to provide an update on the events in Syria and Lebanon on what has taken place with the churches we are in partnership with, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon.
This news is not official, nonetheless a summary compiled by members of the SLPN Steering Committee and comprised of reports from current trusted sources on the ground within the two countries. We are asking your prayers during this fragile and uncertain time for all of our churches and their countries.
Our plan is to provide updates as regularly as we can, pending receipt of information from our partners in the region.
As you likely know, the collapse of the Assad regime began in Idlib province, which was where all of the rebel groups who had been purposed to overthrow the Assad regime were being held after most of the hostilities had ceased in 2019. Over time Idlib became a kind of haven for these rebel fighters and most of the groups coalesced under the leadership of one man, Abu Mohammed Al Joulani (real name Ahamad Al Sharaa). This umbrella organization, Hyatt Tahreer al Sham or HTS (translated to mean The Authority or Committee for the Liberation of Syria), agreed to have Joulani as the head, and was able to organize in some ways the inhabitants’ civil and legal affairs (educational materials, health and law enforcement, etc.). HTS is now the leader of many fundamentalist Salafi Islamic groups who hold various views of Islamic ideology. They are still held in Idlib, with some being more religiously intolerant.
Since the collapse on December 8, 2024, HTS has taken control of the country (with the exception of areas of the northeast) and are now purportedly working to establish a constitutional national government which will create a new Syria, more fair and inclusive than anything the country has known in past years. The remaining concern centers around who HTS is comprised of and what role its dissenters will play.
In past years, Al-Sharaa himself has been associated with Isis and Al Nusra. These groups were leaders in the militant revolt against Assad and were, with the Assad regime, responsible for much of the terror and destruction the nation experienced in the crisis over the last fourteen years. Since that time Al Sharaa appears to have experienced a change of views and his HTS group has thus far been able to harness the majority of most of these groups into a temporary accord to allow a period of relative peace, while plans are made to assemble a new national government.
In a recently released statement to the media, Al Sharaa has said that from the first day after the collapse of the Assad regime and for the short-term future a caretaker government will be responsible for the ruling of the country, a new prime minister will take over all the official files from the most recent Assad regime while new ministers and managers of this government will be those who worked as the “Saving Government” of Idlib over the past four years. This Caretaker Government will end March 1, 2025. Soon to follow, a national convention will be held with purportedly all Syrians represented and tasked to form a Consulting Council which will be authorized to suspend the current constitution of Syria, dissolve the parliament and form an interim government in which those from all segments of the Syrian population will be represented. Early on this interim government will choose a special committee to write the new constitution which will protect all citizens regardless of their religion, sect, ethnicity or gender. They intend after 2-3 years, national free elections will take place and Al-Sharaa will announce the dissolution of HTS and all military forces being merged into a new Army of Syria.
The current de facto leaders are trying to ensure that all denominational and cultural rights are preserved and that the coming transitional government will be more inclusive. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has applied some fundamental changes to the school syllabi such as removing the Theory of Evolution, and the Ministry of Justice has appointed some fundamental Islamists as judges while all secular and civil laws are still theoretically in force.
Al-Sharaa announced amnesty of all Syrian Army personnel and instructed them to remain in their homes. He closed the security and police offices and brought them from Idlib to all the large cities to assure security and, in some cases, to even direct traffic!
As fallout from the Israeli-Gaza-Lebanon fighting, Israel launched 350 air attacks on all facilities of the Syrian Army and of the Iranian militia in Syria and Lebanon. Since that time the fighting in southern Lebanon has quieted for the most part and people who had fled to northern Lebanon are returning to the south. We have seen no reports yet about the return of NESSL churches in the south. A degree of peace has come because the armed members of Hezbollah who were stationed along the Syria-Lebanon border have returned to northern Lebanon and Israel feels more secure along her northern borders as they have captured the buffer zone between Syria and Israel and have taken the highest summit of Mt. Hermon and the city of Oonaitra. The UN has denounced this action taken by Israel.
High-level conversations have been held in Damascus with US and European diplomats who have received assurances from HTS that their plans are all moving forward. Al Sharaa has repeatedly asked all visiting delegations to make efforts to promptly lift the sanctions imposed on Syria. He claims that these sanctions were imposed on the Assad regime and that now Syria has come under a new government with different attitudes. He also has stated that the Syrian people have been the real victims of these sanctions. The common response to his request is that these western countries expect the new Syrian government to follow through on all the promises of having an inclusive government representing all segments of Syrian society and guaranteeing the human rights of minorities. These visiting delegations have made clear that when words become reality on the ground, then and only then will sanctions begin to be lifted. Currently people are waiting until March 1st to see what will happen.
HTS has also announced that security concerns have been addressed with a wide campaign by the HTS army launching a campaign to collect weapons from the people, especially the Alawites, with some resulting clashes and casualties. These searches brought about officials entering the homes of some Christians where sacred pictures of the virgin Mary and crosses were smashed. Some continue to feel these were actions undertaken by militia and that many of these groups are “out of control.” The few isolated incidents were followed by swift apologies by HTS authorities.
What we are seeing now after more than 45 days of the regime’s collapse are isolated, random, chaotic actions like storming supermarkets and houses with some cases of kidnapping. At the same time, no clear and active intervention of the new police system has been noticed. Schools and universities are open while many governmental departments are still closed or suspended. At the same time, some of these groups have mounted loudspeakers on top of small trucks and driven through Christian neighborhoods in Aleppo announcing that all women should cover their heads. In Homs, posters have been placed on buildings demanding that women should wear the Islamic black gowns to cover their entire body. A third reported incident told of people in al-Sqylbieh burning Christmas trees but that a higher authority from HTS restored the trees and carried a cross to show respect. The church in Hama experienced bullets fired at a cross, for which HTS also apologized. Other than these isolated incidents, we have nothing to report and most importantly, no physical harm has come to any Christians as far as we know.
Greetings from our NESSL Pastors
“Please continue to keep us in your prayers, as we will keep you in ours. The solidarity and love from our partners like you help illuminate our path during these difficult times. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership and supporting each other in faith."
Grace and Peace, Adon Namaan Pastor, Homs
"This new situation led Syrians to live in a state of uncertainty. And many questions were raised on what kind of authority are we going to have in Syria? Although the main group "Hayaat Tahrir Alsham" or HTS is trying its best to calm down people's fears, still people are afraid since the HTS comes from a radical, exclusivist terrorist background."
God bless you, Salam Hanna Pastor, Latakia