The United Nations warned on Wednesday that thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Yarmouk camp near the Syrian capital are running short on water, food and medicine. The warning was made as the Syrian regime prepared to capture the area after seizing the Eastern Ghouta region, a suburb of Damascus. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, reported overnight shelling on Tuesday as Syrian regime forces readied an assault on the last area outside their control near Damascus. “The humanitarian situation in Yarmouk and surrounding areas has long been very harsh and is rapidly deteriorating,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said. “Supplies of food and medicine are running low. There is no running water and very little electricity. Healthcare options are limited and there are no doctors remaining in the area.” Many residents have fled the area, which has been besieged by pro-regime forces since the early days of the seven-year-old civil war that has killed more than 500,000 people and driven more than half of Syrians from their homes. UNRWA said refugees in Yarmouk camp make up about half of some 12,000 civilians trapped in the area. It is Syria’s biggest camp for Palestinian refugees since the mid-20th century. Checkpoints into the camp have been closed for most of the last month, cutting off its lifeline, Gunness said. “Things were appalling even before this current upsurge of violence,” he said, calling for more access to distribute aid and to evacuate people who wish to leave. The camp was home to some 160,000 Palestinians before the Syrian conflict began in 2011, refugees from the 1948 war of Israel’s founding, and their descendants. As the Palestinians in Yarmouk braced for the regime assault, hundreds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon began returning to their country. In a rare case of a mass return of those who left the country since the conflict began in 2011, nearly 500 people, including children and the elderly, left the Shebaa area in southeast Lebanon in 15 buses for the Beit Jinn district in Syria, southwest of Damascus. The area was recaptured by pro-regime forces in December. The buses reached the Lebanese border on Wednesday afternoon before crossing into Syria. The convoy was organized by the Lebanese authorities, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported. The UN refugee agency UNHCR, in a statement, said it was not involved in organizing “these returns or other returns at this point, considering the prevailing humanitarian and security situation in Syria”. Some leading Lebanese politicians, including President Michel Aoun, have called for Syrian refugees to return to calmer parts of Syria, but the UNsays they should not be forced to go back. Lebanon has hosted over a million refugees since the eruption of the conflict, putting a major strain on the country’s already limited resources.