As Lebanon enters its eleventh month of hostilities across its southern borders’ areas, with internally displaced people dramatically increasing, the expected wave of solidarity is replaced by a harshly widespread logics of profit
As more than 100,000 people have been displaced from south Lebanon since hostilities along border areas broke out on October 8, rents across Beirut and Mount Lebanon – but generally all over the country – have recently skyrocketed from an average of 300 dollars to as high as 1,400 per month, a 367% increase, with real estate agents also demanding months of rent in advance, The Public Source reported.
Alongside appeals for solidarity for the populations affected by the war – the Palestinians in Gaza, first and foremost, but also the Lebanese of the south and the Beqaa valley, Facebook walls are crowded with dozens of posts that read: “Furnished apartment for rent in Al-Kfour area – ground floor with garden – 12 amp solar energy – gas stove – air conditioners – very quiet location – monthly rent of 500 dollars – insurance of 200 dollars – office fees – small family wanted;” or, in the southern district of Nabatieh, directly hit by Israeli airstrikes: “Furnished apartment for rent in Kfar Jouz, 5 rooms for rent 700 dollars;” “Independent house for rent in Nabatieh, 600 dollars, unfurnished;” “Apartment for rent in Deir Al-Zahrani, ground floor, 3 bedrooms, rent 500 dollars, 3 months in advance;” “Furnished apartment for rent in Upper Nabatieh, fourth-last floor, area of 170 square meters, American system, water well 24/24 – solar energy 10 amps – contract for one year – monthly rent 500 dollars.”
And the reality in the Beirut governorate and its mountain regions – until now unaffected by direct Israeli attacks, with the exception of the capital’s southern suburbs – is even harsher, with rents reaching 1,500 dollars per month.
At the opposite extreme of the solidarity economy – the harsh logic of profit, where the displaced families from the border areas, while cities are emptied of foreigners or citizens with the possibility to leave the country, instead of being welcomed free-of-charge in vacant and relatively safe apartments, are burdened with exorbitant rents: as long as the owners earn something from them. Surely, the fear of Hezbollah commanders hiding among the displaced – the risk of transforming Beirut and Mount Lebanon into a new south, torn by targeted Israeli strikes – is also pushing many Lebanese not to rent their emptier and emptier apartments to the displaced civilians, aggravating the sectarian tensions latent beneath Lebanon’s social fabric. But if safety, in the context of war, becomes a relative concept – profit surely does not.
It will be enough to shed light on the latest public notice to apartment owners in Beirut, regarding renting to displaced people from south Lebanon, to get an idea of the uncontrollable gravity of the situation. The Public Relations Department of the Beirut municipality announced that its Governor, Judge Marwan Abboud, issued a statement to the owners of residential apartments in the capital, noticing that “within the framework of national solidarity and cohesion in the face of the repercussions of the Israeli attacks on the south and its towns for the tenth consecutive month, and since this aggressive war that Lebanon is being subjected to requires the Lebanese to unite and cooperate, we extend our greetings to everyone who sympathized and opened their homes to the displaced, and call for taking into account the circumstances and not exploiting them to raise the rent and setting the conditions as required by brotherhood and citizenship.”
If some apartment owners exploit the circumstances of the displaced, and decide to rent them out at a price higher than their actual rental value, then, the Beirut Municipality announced to be ready to adopt the heightened as a standard for the rental value of the apartment when the property is occupied by the owner, in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Fees and Allowances Law. As it often happens, legislative policies manage to fix – framing them in appeals of solidarity, at best, or in sanctions, at worst – situations of social chaos.
And although it would be misleading to describe as temporary the situation of internal displacement that Lebanon has been witnessing in the last ten months – because this would call into question the unresolved issue of the end of the conflict, even before the no-less problematic reconstruction of villages, roads, water, electricity, telecommunications infrastructure, commercial activities and houses of the south; although it would be naive to expect a population impoverished by almost five years of unprecedented economic crisis to take responsibility for the survival of 100,000 displaced people – it is necessary to trace the movement trajectories of those who have been forced to abandon their homes to understand which Lebanon to ask for temporarily open its doors for free, and which to forgive the need to charge the exiles of a war they did not choose to undergo. Because even openness to solidarity is a possibility that depends on privilege.
Beirut’s housing vacancy
In Beirut, the consequences of high vacancy rates are evident. In the context of prohibitively high housing costs and a soaring housing crisis, empty apartments represent a missed opportunity to secure adequate housing to those in need, especially in times of conflict.
As urban housing vacancy soars in heavily financialized cities across the globe, its detrimental effects – housing crises, interrupted economic cycles, and empty public coffers – are widely felt by residents and city authorities worldwide. This is the case in Beirut where the staggering effects of years of speculative real-estate investments have left Lebanon’s capital in ruin amidst more than four years of financial meltdown. Despite the evidence of a severe crisis, though, the absence of data to assess the scale and spread of vacancy limits the possibilities for intervention.
In order to respond to this urgency, the Beirut Urban Lab conducted in Summer 2023 a housing vacancy survey that covered a representative sample of municipal Beirut, divided across its market segments. The main findings of the survey – led by Mona Fawaz, coordinated by Abir Zaatari, and funded by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – were presented and analyzed in the published research report titled ‘Housing Vacancy in Beirut 2023: Drivers and Trends.’ Confirming that Lebanon’s capital suffers from alarmingly high housing vacancy rates – about 20% -, which spread across all neighborhoods, rich and poor – yet especially the rich ones -, and extend to almost all the city’s buildings, the survey shows that rising apartment prices correlate with higher vacancy rates and lower rental occupancy rates, with housing vacancy rates peaking at 31% in the city’s luxurious segment. Which means, practically, that there is more vacant space the richer the neighborhoods.
In light of these data, it is once again appropriate to underline how the exploitation of the already limited resources of displaced people not only exposes the hypocrisy of solidarity of part of the Lebanese, but denounces the culpability of a policy framework that incentivizes speculative behaviors. A real jointly-liable economy, of free and disinterested welcome, should all the more develop in the more affluent areas; charge the costs of asylum to those with more resources – contrary to what happens, as the data shows, when the poor share the little they have, the rich speculate on the others’ misfortunes. And the middle class disappears.
The survey further found that almost all the surveyed vacant apartments in Beirut are in good condition, operational, structurally sound – hence inhabitable, they require minimal repairs to be reintroduced to the market, and could be put to use if owners are appropriately incentivized. Moreover, as housing vacancy in Beirut emerged to be endemic and persistent – with around three-quarters of the surveyed vacant stock remaining empty for over two years, and diasporic communities investing in secondary homes resulting in a substantial number of empty or under-utilized homes, in a moment where tourism is clearly not at its peak – also the issue of a long-lasting displacement, before the war ends and the south begins to be reconstructed, would be solved.
Long-lasting temporariness
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) conducts daily monitoring of population movements – supported by the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) and the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Unit – with the objective of informing preparedness and response planning. According to the last report, published on August 8, 2024, with data collected up till August 6, there are currently 102,523 internally displaced individuals in Lebanon – of which only 1,283 – the 1% – live in collective shelters organized in the southern areas of Sour, Saida, Nabatieh and Hasbaya. The vast majority of the other displaced individuals, precisely the 81%, is currently living in host settings – mainly residing separately from non-internally displaced families and in overcrowded conditions; among the rest, while the 16% has opted for rental housing, only the 2% had relocated to their secondary residences.
In the last week alone recorded by the IOM monitoring – following the Israeli attack in Haret Hreik, Dahieh, which killed Fouad Shukr and five civilians on July 30 – 3,657 new displacements have been recorded – showing a 4% increase the previous week. Arriving mainly from Sour, Marjayoun, Hasbaya, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, Baabda and Beirut itself, these families had to face the capitalization of their misfortune, with the prices of rented apartments rising dramatically.
Displacement trends furtherly show that 39% of the displacement is intra-governorate, while 61% is cross-governorate: but even in the second case, movement remains in the southern regions of South and Nabatieh. In the South governorate, then, where 11% of the total displaced individuals originated, 95% of them decided to move internally within the governorate.
The data, therefore, speaks clearly. The displaced people of southern Lebanon remain in the south, exposed to the ever-increasing risk of indiscriminate Israeli attacks, because they do not have, cannot find, or cannot afford, another place to take shelter in – within the borders of their own, emptying, and more and more expensive country.
Among the most interesting to analyze, the number of returnees stands out: those who go back, traveling in reverse on the displacement trends. Between July 31 and August 6, 210 returnees have been identified in Bint Jbeil and Sour districts, coming from Sour and Beirut. Those who return, during a war that does not seem to want to subside, to their village of origin, already hit by enemy attacks, and which they had previously decided to leave, tell, even without wanting to, a story: that of the failure of Lebanon’s internal and external refugees’ reception system. Which is much more serious given the well-known risk of conflict to which Lebanon’s borders are subject to.
Self-reconstructing the social south
While both the government, supported by a budget surplus and possible help from Banque du Liban (BDL), the United States, and Iran-backed Hezbollah promise to rebuild southern towns and infrastructures destroyed by ongoing Israeli attacks, the reality on the ground tells a different story, of the law of making do and distrust towards demagogy.
Hassan, from the southern village of Arzoun, Sour, lives in a country house with his wife and three of his five children. From the upper floor, a few years ago he created a guesthouse which he rents to travelers, or where he hosts his nephews who come to visit him. He has a large family, which gathers on every festive occasion – from iftar during Ramadan; on Laylat al-Qadr, the night of destiny; to Ashura – all united by light-green, smiling eyes.
For ten months, the rooms upstairs have been crowded – despite tourism in the south having plummeted: there, Fatema and Zeinab are living with their two families from Ayta al-Shaab, in the Bint Jbeil district, a few steps from the border with Israel – that in places like these you will always hear called ‘occupied Palestine.’ Here, solidarity towards Palestine is felt because similar is the fate. They have dark eyes and a different, foreign accent; they smile less – like anyone who has fled their destroyed home, and brings with them only rubble and mourning for those left behind.
“From the moment they came knocking at our door, we immediately hosted them in, without asking anything back,” Hassan says, well-knowing how it feels to lose everything because of war. The plight of the displaced people in the south is a reminder of a tragedy they themselves suffered: “We were also forcibly displaced during the war in July 2006, so we know what it’s like to lose your home, not knowing whether it is still up or it has been destroyed, to have no hot water or electricity. If we didn’t take them in, who would have?” he wonders rhetorically. No one – the implicit answer.
Even before, during the harsh years of the Civil War, he recalls, “I can’t forget the image of that Israeli tank in 1982 running over a car of displaced people and continuing on its way, leaving the family behind in a pool of blood.” That was four years after an initial incursion called Operation Litani. In Arzoun, the occupying forces stayed for about a year, until 1983, he explained, during which time “it was impossible to work or cultivate your land without risking being targeted by Israeli soldiers.” During that time, a big wave of solidarity spread among southerners to manage their survival: now, it is time to give back.
Nevertheless, it is also a time to be realistic. That is why, since April, Hassan is asking his guests to contribute – as much as they can – to the monthly rent. Of course without speculation. “This guesthouse was part of our business, and since October we’re living with half of what we used to gain – having to take care of the needs of the triple of people.” Channels of informal charity do help, providing basic food, medicine and clothes – but continuity is not guaranteed, considering the ongoing increasing number of displaced families.
“They don’t even know whether their houses are still there, or everything has been destroyed, as, for ten months, they have never managed to go back,” he explains. “We live in a condition of temporariness that we expect will last long.”
To rebuild the south, in fact, it will not be enough for hostilities to cease – just as its material reconstruction will not be enough to make it livable again. The social fractures, the agricultural devastation, the lands’ poisoning caused by white phosphorus bombs; the infrastructural annihilation; the collective trauma experienced by its population; the hundreds of dead, the wounded, the orphans and the widows – everything which, in other words, does not constitute the collateral damage of a war, but represents the most intimate essence of war – will not be healed with a few billion dollars allocated by the demagogue of the moment. The sooner Lebanon will realize how long-lasting the displacement situation affecting one hundred thousand of its citizens will be; the sooner we will take charge of the fate of their survival – preventing speculators from enriching themselves at their expense -, and the sooner we will be able to think of a rebuildable country.
Yet, a first reconstruction – the social one – is already underway. Every week, for ten months, Hassan has been bringing together the new family – extended beyond blood bonds – in his living room filled with antiques, reciting zajal, popular Arabic poetry, singing about love, sipping endless coffee. And if this is the right form of reception, if this is a way to accept a long-lasting temporariness, then it will not be surprising that Fatema, Zeinab and their families never considered moving to safer neighborhoods of Beirut, despite the uncertainty they face, the bombings that still make them jump, and the omnipresent buzz of drones that they will never be able to get used to. From Ayta to Arzoun, at least, they still keep on feeling at home.
