evidence: Qasr lacks a sewage network. There are efforts to establish one connected to the treatment plant planned for the city of Hermel in the land between the two areas. Muhammad Jaafar, a Qasr-Sahlat al-Moi resident, says that Qasr belongs to the Lebanese state "in identity only" as "deprivation envelops everything". The "medical sector" in the town, which is located 12 kilometers away from Hermel and 160 kilometers away from Beirut, consists only of "a modest Ministry of Social Affairs clinic that you could call pro forma" and another clinic belonging to Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization. Anyone who needs a small wound stitched must head to Hermel, says Jaafar: "There is no clinic for an on-call doctor in Qasr." [...] Recently, Lebanese were reintroduced to Qasr via the talk about smuggling to Syria, as though it were a new phenomenon. In reality, smuggling has been one of the most important sources of income in the area since the two countries separated. Qasr is one of the areas along the border line extending from Dabousieh and Arida in North Lebanon to Deir el-Aachayer in western Beqaa, passing through Hawsh al-Sayyid Ali, Mushrifah, Aarsal, Ham, Maarboun, Masnaa, and other areas. In these areas, border commerce – as their people prefer to call smuggling – has been active ever since the Sykes–-Picot Agreement drew the current border between the two countries.