The Lebanese army evacuates the Hamra Star hotel, where displaced people are staying. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
An evacuation order, which the army and security forces were trying to enforce, of a building serving as a shelter for displaced people from south Lebanon caused tensions on Monday afternoon in Hamra and was ultimately only partially implemented, with an agreement being reached with the security forces.
Hundreds of people living in a building in the Hamra district of Beirut were supposed to be evicted by the security forces later today. But after a sit-in by a group of protesters and displaced people who burned a trash can and blocked the road in an attempt to prevent the remaining displaced people from being evacuated, an agreement was reached.
The women and children of the group were allowed to stay in the building, a former hotel that had been abandoned for ten years.
On site, the police refused to give further details on the complaint filed against the displaced persons, which led to their evacuation, but explained that the evacuated persons would be transferred to another reception centre in the Tarik Jdidé district.
Complaint
On Sept. 23, after nearly a year of attritional warfare on the southern border with Hezbollah, in the wake of the war in Gaza, Israel launched a major offensive in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa, which displaced more than a million people and brought the war's toll to more than 2,400 dead and 11,200 wounded. Since then, more than a million residents, mainly in the south of the country, in the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, have been displaced.
Displaced people in front of the Hamra Star Hotel. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
A face-off took place between the displaced and the security forces, including the Lebanese army, leading to scuffles. "This is the enemy you are fighting!" shouted a woman carrying her daughter, who had cancer, in front of the soldiers in the crowd. It was the day after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, killed on Sept. 27 that Nada, originally from Houla in the south of the country, found refuge at Hamra Star.
"The place had been abandoned for 10 years, and was in a terrible state. We repaired and cleaned the toilets, installed electricity," she said. According to displaced people on site, one of the owners had indeed agreed to open the premises to them on condition that they clean and maintain the building. Two days later, the owner apparently changed her mind and filed a complaint a few days ago. As the identity of the various owners of the building is not known, it was not possible to ask them for their version of events.
'No other choice'
Nada, whose mother is disabled, says she is disgusted by all the politicians who force them to vote for them and now abandon them on the streets, in the middle of a war. Not far from her, Oum Fadi, originally from Cana, waits in front of the building to try to go and collect some belongings. "I have no choice but to settle here, but they expelled us by force," she said.
The situation in front of the building was at times very tense. At one point, a photographer was jostled about by some particularly edgy young people. According to an elderly woman, at least one of the displaced people was taken to hospital after being beaten by security forces. And as tensions continued to escalate, a young man was taken away by ambulance after suffering what appeared to be an epileptic seizure. At times, amid chants of insults against the army and security forces, there were shouts of allegiance to Hezbollah and its former leader.
In a statement issued in the afternoon, the Internal Security Forces said that “the Attorney General has granted [the displaced] a further 48 hours to evacuate the building.”
