BEIRUT: When war last reached the borders of the Lebanese capital nearly two decades ago, Bilal Sahlab and his family drove to a remote mountain town, rented an apartment and waited for the bombings to end.
This time there is no car, no money for rent and no idea when the hostilities might end.
Residents of Beirut’s predominantly Shiite southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, have been in turmoil since an Israeli airstrike on their neighborhood last week killed the top military commander of the Shiite armed group Hezbollah and five civilians.
On the same day, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was assassinated in Tehran. Hezbollah and other allies of Iran have vowed retaliation against Israel.
Many in Dahiyeh feared that the airstrike on their population was a sign that the hostilities – which have been going on for ten months alongside the Gaza war but have so far been largely confined to the border area between Lebanon and Israel – were now hitting their homeland.
During the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Israeli attacks razed buildings in Dahiyeh, forcing residents to flee to other towns for safety.
For Sahlab, that is no longer an option. A five-year economic crisis has devalued the dollar, cost him his savings and reduced his monthly salary from over $5,000 to just under $500.
So he sent his wife and children to her in-laws in the mountainous Aley region east of Beirut for safety, while he stayed in Dahiyeh to continue working.
“It’s safer for them up there,” he told Reuters, breaking down in tears. “I can’t go up there because I have to work to contribute to their expenses.”
Take advantage
Following last week’s strike, residents of Dahiyeh told Reuters they had begun looking for housing either in Aley or further east in the Bekaa Valley.
But as demand increased, monthly rents in these areas skyrocketed, sometimes reaching $1,000 – far too expensive for people of modest means.
Fatima Seifeddine, 53, found an apartment in the Bekaa Valley for $500 a month, but her monthly salary as a janitor at the university of just $300 meant she could not afford the apartment.
“In 2006, we moved from place to place until we ended up in a hotel that housed displaced families – but today there are no such options,” she told Reuters by phone.
Even staying with family has become a challenge.
On the night of the strike, Majed Zeaiter, a 50-year-old man who drives a van taxi in Dahiyeh, drove with his wife and five children more than 50 kilometers north to Afka to stay in a small apartment with his brother’s family.
“The situation scares me… it’s a crisis situation and when you think about war, you fear for your children,” he told Reuters. “The bombings, the war – with every month that passes, the situation gets worse.”
All seven of them slept in one room that night. But his brother did not earn enough to accommodate them, so Zeaiter returned to Dahiyeh early the next morning to continue working.
The search for accommodation is made more difficult by the sectarian hostilities and fault lines that still permeate Lebanon decades after the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. This makes it more difficult for the residents of Dahiyeh to find accommodation than in the past.
In 2006, residents of Dahiyeh were able to find shelter in some Christian neighborhoods thanks to an alliance formed several months earlier between Hezbollah and a Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement.
But with tensions between the two parties high this year and criticism of Hezbollah from other Christian parties, who say the Shiite movement unilaterally plunged the country into war, some Shiite families feel less welcome in Christian areas.
A Lebanese man living in a predominantly Christian part of Beirut said he wanted to get his grandmother out of Dahiyeh following last week’s Israeli attack that struck just around the corner from her home.
However, he said he was afraid his neighbors would discriminate against her because she wears a headscarf.
In one case in an area where the Druze minority predominantly lives, a displaced Shiite family reportedly found that when they arrived at the apartment they wanted to rent, they were barred from entering, some of them armed, according to local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.
On social media, some users demanded that Shiite families should not be allowed to rent in areas where other faiths live, accusing the Shiites of bringing about the war themselves.
Nasser, a 70-year-old driver, told Reuters he would like to leave Dahiyeh with his family, but tensions and prices are too high for him.
“Nobody shows compassion or understands that this is a war situation and we have to help each other,” he said.
“Instead, people are taking advantage of each other and eating each other alive.”