In Dam­as­cus, the streets were buzzing with ex­cite­ment Tues­day as Syr­i­ans wel­comed in a new year that seemed to many to bring a promise of a brighter fu­ture af­ter the un­ex­pect­ed fall of Bashar As­sad’s gov­ern­ment weeks ear­li­er.

While Syr­i­ans in the cap­i­tal looked for­ward to a new be­gin­ning af­ter the oust­ing of As­sad, the mood was more som­bre along Beirut’s Mediter­ranean prom­e­nade, where res­i­dents shared cau­tious hopes for the new year, re­flect­ing on a coun­try still reel­ing from war and on­go­ing crises.

War-weary Pales­tini­ans in Gaza who lost their homes and loved ones in 2024 saw lit­tle hope that 2025 would bring an end to their suf­fer­ing.

The last year was a dra­mat­ic one in the Mid­dle East, bring­ing calami­ty to some and hope to oth­ers. Across the re­gion, it felt fool­ish to many to at­tempt to pre­dict what the next year might bring.

In Dam­as­cus, Abir Hom­si said she is op­ti­mistic about a fu­ture for her coun­try that would in­clude peace, se­cu­ri­ty and free­dom of ex­pres­sion and would bring Syr­i­an com­mu­ni­ties pre­vi­ous­ly di­vid­ed by bat­tle lines back to­geth­er.

“We will re­turn to how we once were, when peo­ple loved each oth­er, cel­e­brat­ed to­geth­er whether it is Ra­madan or Christ­mas or any oth­er hol­i­day — no re­strict­ed ar­eas for any­one,” she said.

But for many, the new year and new re­al­i­ty car­ried with it re­minders of the painful years that came be­fore.

Ab­dul­rah­man al-Habib, from the east­ern Syr­i­an city of Deir el-Zour, had come to Dam­as­cus in hopes of find­ing rel­a­tives who dis­ap­peared af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed un­der As­sad’s rule. He was at the cap­i­tal’s Mar­jeh Square, where rel­a­tives of the miss­ing have tak­en to post­ing pho­tos of their loved ones in search of any clue to their where­abouts.

“We hope that in the new year, our sta­tus will be bet­ter ... and peace will pre­vail in the whole Arab world,” he said.

In Lebanon, a ten­u­ous cease­fire brought a halt to fight­ing be­tween Is­rael and the Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group a lit­tle over a month ago. The coun­try bat­tered by years of eco­nom­ic col­lapse, po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty and a se­ries of calami­ties since 2019, con­tin­ues to grap­ple with un­cer­tain­ty, but the truce has brought at least a tem­po­rary re­turn to nor­mal life.

Some fam­i­lies flocked to the Mzaar Ski Re­sort in the moun­tains north­east of Beirut on Tues­day to en­joy the day in the snow even though the re­sort had not of­fi­cial­ly opened.

“What hap­pened and what’s still hap­pen­ing in the re­gion, es­pe­cial­ly in Lebanon re­cent­ly, has been very painful,” said Youssef Had­dad, who came to ski with his fam­i­ly. “We have great hope that every­thing will get bet­ter.”

On Beirut’s sea­side cor­niche, Mo­ham­mad Mo­ham­mad from the vil­lage of Mar­wahin in south­ern Lebanon was strolling with his three chil­dren.

“I hope peace and love pre­vail next year, but it feels like more (chal­lenges) await us,” he said.

Mo­ham­mad was among the tens of thou­sands dis­placed dur­ing more than a year of con­flict be­tween Hezbol­lah and Is­rael. Now liv­ing in Jadra, a town that was al­so bom­bard­ed dur­ing the con­flict, he awaits the end of a 60-day pe­ri­od, af­ter which the Is­raeli army is re­quired to with­draw un­der the con­di­tions of a French and U.S.-bro­kered cease­fire.

“Our vil­lage was com­plete­ly de­stroyed,” Mo­ham­mad said. His fam­i­ly would spend a qui­et evening at home, he said. This year “was very hard on us. I hope 2025 is bet­ter than all the years that passed.”

In Gaza, where the war be­tween Hamas and Is­rael has killed more than 45,500 Pales­tini­ans, brought mas­sive de­struc­tion and dis­placed most of the en­clave’s pop­u­la­tion, few saw cause for op­ti­mism in the new year.

“The year 2024 was one of the worst years for all Pales­tin­ian peo­ple. It was a year of hunger, dis­place­ment, suf­fer­ing and pover­ty,” said Nour Abu Obaid, a dis­placed woman from north­ern Gaza.

Obaid, whose 10-year-old child was killed in a strike in the so-called “hu­man­i­tar­i­an zone” in Muwasi, said she didn’t ex­pect any­thing good in 2025. “The world is dead,” she said. “We do not ex­pect any­thing, we ex­pect the worst.”

The war was sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led at­tack on south­ern Is­rael in which mil­i­tants killed around 1,200 peo­ple and ab­duct­ed some 250 oth­ers.

Is­mail Sal­ih, who lost his home and liveli­hood, ex­pressed hopes for an end to the war in 2025 so that Gaza’s peo­ple can start re­build­ing their lives.

The year that passed “was all war and all de­struc­tion,” he said. “Our homes are gone, our trees are gone, our liveli­hood is lost.”

In the com­ing year, Sal­ih said he hopes that Pales­tini­ans can “live like the rest of the peo­ple of the world, in se­cu­ri­ty, re­as­sur­ance and peace.” —DAM­AS­CUS (AP)

_________

Sto­ry by GHAITH AL­SAYED, WAFAA SHU­RAFA and LU­JAIN JO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Wafaa Shu­rafa re­port­ed from Muwasi, Gaza and Lu­jain Jo from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Sal­ly Abou AlJoud and Ab­by Sewell in Beirut, and Fa­di Taw­il in Kfarde­bian, Lebanon, con­tributed to this re­port.