Under the scorching sun in eastern Lebanon, Syrian refugee Ibrahim al-Karbo is busy with his children peeling garlic cloves to provide for a living, while he has lost hope of returning to his country despite the increasing campaign against refugees in Lebanon, the criticism of the host authorities, and the decline in international aid.

"My son told me that his hand had turned blue from the garlic...and I told him if it turned red, continue working. We want to eat bread," Karbou says, as the smell of garlic wafts through the camp in the town of Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley.

Al-Karbo, 48, works with five of his six children, all of whom are under 12 years old, to separate garlic cloves from each other by squeezing them hard and then peeling them, which sometimes makes their little hands swell.

Work provides the family with about twenty dollars a week, while the aid they receive from the United Nations is only sufficient to cover basic needs, says Karbo.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in difficult conditions, especially since the start of the economic collapse that the country has been witnessing since the fall of 2019.

The economic crisis has increased the hostile rhetoric towards refugees who receive aid from international organizations, at a time when more than eighty percent of the Lebanese are below the poverty line.

After campaigns of arrest and deportation of refugees carried out by the security services during the current year, under the pretext of not obtaining the necessary legal documents, the caretaker government recently obstructed a program to distribute cash aid in dollars to refugees from the United Nations.

According to the authorities, Lebanon hosts more than two million Syrian refugees, while the number registered with the United Nations does not exceed 800,000.

The Lebanese authorities are exerting pressure on the international community and its organizations, calling for the return of the refugees to their country, after the battles stopped in large areas in Syria that have come under the control of the government forces.

"Supporting the future of Syria and the region" is the focus of an international donors' conference to be held by the European Union in Brussels, in light of an unprecedented funding shortage in response to the Syrian crisis inside and outside the country.

Karbou, who has a thick white beard that makes him look older, expresses his fear of returning to his hometown in light of the chaos and security concerns.

He says, "I wish one of the Lebanese would see the state of my house in Raqqa (...) Otherwise, why would I stay in a tent and not in my house? Why should my children not be educated? What compels us to this bitter life?"

And he adds, "I would rather die here in front of my children...than leave them," indicating fear for his fate in the event of his deportation to Syria, amid accusations by human rights organizations that the authorities have arrested a number of returnees from Lebanon.

About seven years ago, the man fled his city, where he worked in the field of construction, after the Islamic State took control of it and made it its most prominent stronghold in Syria until it was defeated in 2016 by the Syrian Democratic Forces, whose backbone is the Kurdish fighters and supported by the international coalition led by Washington.

Although the dream of return haunts many, many refugees today find themselves trapped between poor living conditions in Lebanon and the inability to return, after they lost their homes as a result of the battles and their livelihoods, in addition to the lack of services and basic infrastructure. A large number of young people also fear that they will be forced to join the compulsory military service in Syria.

The Syrian war, which has caused, since its outbreak in 2011, the death of more than half a million people and destroyed the economy and its capabilities, has prompted more than 5.5 million people to flee the country, while an almost equal number has been displaced within it.

Sadness and despair appear on the face of Souad, Karbo's sister, when she talks about her loss of hope in living a normal life. After fleeing years ago from the rule of the Islamic State, she lost her 12-year-old son this year in an agricultural tractor accident during the potato harvesting season.

"I feel that all doors are closed to us. My house in Syria was bombed. If I return, where do I live? On the street? A tent is better," she told AFP, adding, "I feel that it has become impossible to live a decent life."

While her five other children dropped out of school in order to work, she lamented, "fear accompanies me wherever I go (...) I despair of life. I am almost alive, my heart is dead, but I live for my children."

In a nearby camp in the town of Saadnayel, Ghufran al-Jassem (30 years old) expresses her concern about the future of her four children in Lebanon, after she refused to send them to school because she was unable to pay the transportation costs.

The mother, who fled with her family from Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria, tells that two of her children suffer from heart failure.

And one of them, at the age of seven, needs a heart transplant, in an expensive operation that she cannot afford at all.

"I see my children dying in front of my eyes," she says, with tears in her eyes, in light of the fact that no one is sponsoring the treatment of her two sick children.

Like many refugees who complain about the financial and psychological pressure they suffer from in forgotten tents, Al-Jassem says, "We cannot return to Syria because my husband is required for reserve (in the army)."

And you ask, "How will I secure my children's sustenance" at that time?