The two capitals, Amman in Jordan and Damascus in Syria, are only 200km apart, and tourists used to make day trips between the two, while locals came for the duty-free shopping in the zone between the two countries’ customs borders.

Now, after seven years of civil war in Syria, the border is a bleak place, closed to almost all traffic, a herd of goats grazing around the boarded-up shops that line the edge of the once busy Damascus Highway on the Jordanian side

It is here in Jaber, almost literally a stone’s throw from Syria, that some of the 5.5 million Syrians fleeing the war have made their homes.

Some of them live just 3km from their old houses. But they can hear the bombs fall, and know it’s not safe for them to return.

In the aftermath of the bombing raids by the US, UK and France on Damascus and Homs this week, News Corp went to visit the Syrians, some of whom have been living there for seven years, unable to work, their children knowing no life but one eked out in poverty, in a temporary home.

Hassan Radi, now 28, was studying at university in the city of Daraa when the war erupted in 2011, and he had to flee across the border.

He now works as a casual labourer, trying to find enough money to support himself, his wife Alaa Khaled Radi, 21, who he met in Jordan, and their three little boys, Mahmoud, 3, Mohamad, 18 months, and Ahmad, 10 months.

He has lived in Jaber, less than 20km from his old home in Daraa, for seven years. Despite the family being registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, he said he had not been provided with money, and was desperate to move to Canada or Australia to find work.

“We ran away from the events (the war) in 2011,’’ he said.

“I was a university student studying nursing. Then the events happened and I stopped studying.

“I haven’t gone back. Maybe when things get better.’’

Hassan said he once wished for the removal of Bashar al-Assad but said he would return to Syria even if he remained in power, so long as the security situation improved.

He said the air strikes carried out last Saturday had not gone far enough and “we wanted the strikes to be more effective.’’

“Two days ago we were hoping the strikes would be better than this but we have found out it was just a game,’’ he said.

While 105 western missiles were used to wipe out one of the sites in Damascus and two more near Homs, they did not strike any assets belonging to Russia, Syria’s major sponsor, and did not cause major damage to the al-Assad regime’s war infrastructure.

The refugees News Corp spoke to said the regime had begun bombing again almost immediately after the strikes, and that they could hear the strikes from their location in Jordan on Sunday.

The war, which started in Daraa in 2011 after the al-Assad regime cracked down on protesters, is believed to have killed more than 400,000 people, mainly civilians, and forced more than 5.5 million Syrians to flee their homeland. Around one million Syrian refugees are living in Jordan, which has a population of just fewer than 10 million.

Mohamad Zoubi, 60, was a taxi driver in Daraa before he fled Syria in 2012 with his wife and four children.

“It wasn’t adequate,’’ he said of the air strikes, which were launched in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack on April 7 in Douma in Damascus which killed 75 people, including small children.

“They could have known (discovered) who did the chemical attack then go get him and put him on trial.’’

Mr Zoubi said he wished that civil war had never erupted, even if he had once wanted al-Assad to be toppled.

“We were all hopeful Bashar al-Assad would go.

“Now I wish the revolution didn’t happen because Syria is destroyed, all the infrastructure is destroyed, thousands of people have been killed.’’

Hassan Radi’s father Mahmoud Radi, 72, a farmer who fled Syria when his house was looted during the war, said the action by the west was a “failed strike’.’

“The war criminals (of the regime), they are the ones who should have been killed,’’ he said.

The Radi clan has recently taken up residence upstairs in an abandoned shop.

Hassan, his wife and three children share the space with his parents Mahmoud and Latifah, 70, and an uncle.

They invited News Corp into their home and told how the senior Radis had to flee their home only a few kilometres away over the Syrian border.

“We thought a month, maybe two months,’’ Mr Radi senior said, of his decision to move in

temporarily with his son in Jordan while he hoped the fighting would settle down.

It never did, and five years later, the family is trapped in the same limbo in Jordan, unable to get citizenship or work but too afraid to go home.

Hassan’s wife Alaa, who he met in Jordan, also came as a refugee, via the Zaatari refugee camp.

Their three children were all born in Jordan.

“Our home, it was right next to the customs, the free zone,’’ Mahmoud Radi said.

“It is so difficult. We go up onto a high place and we see our home and we start to cry.’’

Mrs Radi senior said she wished for the quiet time before the war had broken out.

“We were happy in our homes. But then every day we had to go from home to home,’’ she said, as unrest and looting broke out across the south.

The Radis feel unsupported by the UNHCR, and say they have not received adequate support, or money, from the peak refugee agency.

Hassan Radi asked for help to move to Australia, which gave sanctuary to 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq in a special humanitarian intake announced in 2014.

Unlike his son, Mahmoud Radi does not want a new life in the west, but a safe return home.

“I don’t want to die anywhere except in my own home,’’ he said.

“Peace is too much to hope for but I will go home if there is security.’’