Lebanon wants to help the majority of Syrian refugees return home this year following the fall of the Assad regime, the country's social affairs minister said.
Haneen Sayed said the government was committed to supporting families with financial and other incentives, but said: “We can't carry this burden any longer.”
To date, about 500,000 of the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon have returned, Ms Sayed said, speaking to The National at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
“We have had international support … but it does still not compensate, if you will, for the pressure that such a large host community has on infrastructure, electricity, on education, on health.
“This is very much a result of the active plan that we put in co-ordination with the Syrian authorities.”
Ms Sayed said: “We expect and we hope that … this will continue so that by the end of 2026, the majority of families will have gone back.”
She added: “Lebanon is the highest per capita refugee-hosting country in the world. We have one and a half million refugees from Syria, and also some Palestinian returnees from refugee camps.”
Beirut and Damascus have sought to mend relations following the fall of Bashar Al Assad in December 2024, although some tensions remain.
While hundreds of thousands of Syrians have returned from Lebanon, and other countries, some, particularly minorities, remain nervous.
A series of killings last summer in the southern Druze town of Sweida by militias called into question how much control Damascus had over the country. Minorities claimed the militias were even allied with the government of President Ahmad Al Shara, and his response to tackle the massacres was slow.
That followed sectarian bloodshed in the Alawite heartland in March 2025, when security personnel and their allies were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly targeting civilians from the Alawite religious minority to which Mr Al Assad belonged.
The Lebanese government has stressed it is working with Damascus and the international community to make the return as humane as possible.
“Today I just met with the new [UNHCR] high commissioner,” Ms Sayed said. “This return plan provides financial incentives and non-financial incentives for families, refugee families, to go back.
“And from the one and a half million that we are hosting, already by the end of December, 500,000 have returned.”
Postwar reconstruction
Ms Sayed oversees the state's plan to tackle dire poverty, particularly in the south of Lebanon, which was left devastated by Israel's war there.
Israeli bombing led to an estimated $10 billion to $11 billion in damage to infrastructure and private assets. She said one in three Lebanese people live under the poverty line.
“So the devastation is large, especially when you talk about the border areas down deep south, but also in the suburbs of Beirut and part of the Bekaa.
“We have been already receiving funding from some of our international partners, the World Bank in particular, $250 million.”
The French government has also pledged tens of millions of dollars, and the government of Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun hopes for further pledging conferences.
Financial crisis
The Aoun government came in with a 15-month mandate to turn around the country's fortunes. Most of its ministers are technocrats and financiers, some of whom worked in the money markets of the Gulf.
The country's finances remain highly constrained. The banking crisis that was sparked half a decade ago has locked away many billions of dollars of ordinary Lebanese citizens' savings in the system.
Ms Sayed said recent laws will restore faith in the banking sector, but that it would take time. This includes the Financial Gap Law, which proposes a four-year repayment plan, starting with those with less than $100,000 locked in deposits.
“There's $12 billion of assets and there's about $86 billion of liabilities. So you can see how daunting this is.”
In May, the government's 15-month term runs out, though the election may be pushed back. Many Lebanese want to give the technocrats longer, rather than return to the sectarian party politics of old.
Ms Sayed said the government's short tenure means it's been “like a marathon or sprint … trying to go as fast as we can”.
In Dubai this week and in recent international conferences, she said the country's rapid progress has been recognised.
“There is positivity towards Lebanon. What we've done as a government in one year, honestly, has not been done in the last 10 years, if not more. So progress is slow, but it is definitely in one direction.”
