Since the Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last week, Batoul and his family have been trying to flee the Hezbollah stronghold where they live, but apartment prices in safer areas have skyrocketed.
“We are with the resistance [le Hezbollah] until death. But it’s normal to be afraid […] and seek shelter,” the 29-year-old journalist, who declined to give her last name because the subject is sensitive, told AFP.
The densely populated southern suburbs are home to the main institutions of pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
On July 30, an Israeli strike targeted a senior military official of this formation, also killing five civilians, three women and two children.
Since then, the country has been on tenterhooks, hanging on Hezbollah’s promise of revenge.
And fears of a regional conflagration are growing, with Iran also vowing to retaliate for the assassination in Tehran of the Palestinian Hamas leader, which Israel blames.
“If war breaks out we will be forced to leave […] “Those who say they want to stay in Dahiyé under the bombings are deluding themselves,” adds the young woman, using the Arabic name for the southern suburb.
” No choice “
Batoul says he is trying to rent an apartment in the “safe areas” outside Beirut, which are outside Hezbollah’s control and are mainly inhabited by Christians or Druze.
But the owners “are asking exorbitant prices,” she laments.
A landlord cancelled her family’s contract at the last minute after she had agreed to pay six months’ rent in advance for an apartment in Sofar, in the mountains.
A resident of the southern suburbs who also declined to give her name said she was lucky to find a house in a village about 15 kilometers from Beirut for $1,500 a month.
Another house, in a nearby mountain village, was listed for $1,500 on a rental website, “but when we arrived they asked us for $2,000,” said the 55-year-old teacher.
“They know we have no choice. When there is a war, we are ready to pay any amount to be safe,” she sighs.
She points out that many people will remain in the suburbs due to lack of means, in a country mired in an economic crisis and where incomes have collapsed.
Riyad Bou Fakhreddine, who rents apartments in Mount Lebanon, near Beirut, says demand is so high that apartments are booked “within an hour or two” of being posted online.
Some clients have quadrupled the price they are asking for their apartments, he says. “But I refuse, I tell them I don’t want to take advantage of people’s fear.”
No solidarity
Residents of the suburbs are also looking for apartments in nearby Beirut itself.
“The phone has been ringing off the hook,” says Ali, who rents furnished apartments in a busy part of the capital. “I rented ten apartments in two days.”
During the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Israeli aircraft pounded the southern suburbs for 30 days, destroying hundreds of buildings.
At the time, Lebanese people from different communities, generally disunited, showed solidarity with the Shiites from the suburbs and the south of Lebanon who were fleeing the violence.
But the situation is different this time, with many Lebanese blaming Hezbollah for dragging the country into a war that has not been universally accepted.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October, Hezbollah has opened a “support front” for the Palestinian Hamas in southern Lebanon, exchanging daily fire with Israel. The violence has left more than 550 dead, including some 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
“At that time, there was no such political polarization,” Batoul regrets.