Beirut- Displaced people from areas of confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel – against the backdrop of the assassination of military commander Fouad Shukr in the southern suburb – complain about what they described as developers exploiting their needs.
Surprise options
Al Jazeera Net’s correspondent contacted a real estate developer who introduced himself as a displaced person from one of the border villages in southern Lebanon, looking for an apartment to rent to escape the war and the possibility of its expansion. He found “surprising” options and long time periods, as follows:
- First choice: Apartment in the town of Qabi’ in Mount Lebanon Governorate, 27 km from Beirut, monthly rent $1200 and minimum rental period is two months with payment in advance.
- the second choice: An apartment in the town of Dohat Aramoun in the Aley district in Mount Lebanon Governorate, 22 kilometers away from the Lebanese capital. The monthly rent is $1,000, with 6 months paid in advance.
- the third optionA building consisting of 3 apartments in the town of Bhamdoun, located in the Aley district in Mount Lebanon Governorate, 35 kilometers from Beirut. The rent is 6 thousand dollars per month.
Crisis merchants
These options are just the tip of the iceberg of exploitation practiced by “crisis merchants” – as described by many of the affected Lebanese – noting that the rents of these apartments were $200 or $300 at most, before the outbreak of the border war between Israel and Hezbollah and the assassination of Commander Fouad Shukr.
Al Jazeera Net got closer to the situation on the ground by accompanying the Badr al-Din family, displaced from one of the border villages, on their tour to search for an apartment to rent in the city of Aley, which is called the “bride of summer resorts in Lebanon.”
Among the options offered by the real estate developer to this family of five – the head of the family, whose name is Mohammed, works as an employee in an accounting firm – was a furnished apartment in the city, which is 20 kilometers away from Beirut, for $1,400 in addition to the commission of the office where this developer works.
When Mohammed heard the details, he stood up and shouted at the real estate developer, “You are merchants of war and blood, and you do not appreciate the suffering of the people. We are displaced, not tourists.”
Mohammed, whose house was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, recounts the “arduous journey of suffering,” as he describes it, in search of an apartment to house him and his family after living in a school for several months and the housing conditions were not comfortable. He says, “My brother (who works in Africa) offered to help and asked me to look for an apartment at a reasonable price, away from the exorbitant prices that are requested in areas that are considered safe and are not supposed to be targeted by Israel.”
Mohammed told Al Jazeera Net, “A large number of displaced people coming from border towns are renting apartments in villages far from the border.”
He added, “I am looking for an apartment far from the south for fear of war breaking out suddenly, and I do not want my children to experience another shock after being displaced from their home to school, because the sound barrier and the drone and aircraft raids have become part of their daily routine.”
Rent to measure
In addition to the material and commercial exploitation, the atmosphere of war that Lebanon is experiencing has revealed a state of division, as residents of a number of areas and villages refuse to rent apartments to these displaced people even if they pay thousands of dollars a month, according to what those affected have said.
Voice messages spread on social media and the WhatsApp application – according to what Al Jazeera Net’s correspondent monitored – asking residents of several areas and towns to ask each other not to rent to displaced people coming from southern Lebanon.
A worker with a non-governmental organization active in southern Lebanon told Al Jazeera Net – who asked not to be identified – “In one of the southern areas (which is considered safe and immune from Israeli strikes, according to the belief of its residents), families agreed with the mayor and mukhtars not to rent apartments to displaced people from areas that are being bombed.” She added that the residents of this area describe the displaced people as “strangers,” as she put it.
We conveyed this to Muhammad Fard, who said, “I am not surprised by it. This sectarian, religious, and regional division has always existed in Lebanon, but I did not expect it to appear in times of crises and calamities.”
What was the response of the landlords?
We tried to contact more than one real estate developer and property owner to ask them about the reasons for these large increases in rents, as described by the displaced, but the result was an exchange of accusations and some of them placing responsibility on others.
Some of them refused to speak to the media, while others spoke on condition of anonymity.
One real estate developer says that he and his colleagues have nothing to do with raising prices. “We publish an advertisement to rent the apartment on our social media accounts and pages or display it on real estate rental applications and we get our percentage, which is usually a month, and we talk to the property owner who determines the rental price, the time period and the payment method.”
In contrast, the owner of one of the buildings that includes more than one apartment, which he offers for rent, denies that he is behind the price hike and attributed the current situation to two things:
- The law of supply and demand; what is required to rent is much less than what is supplied.
- A number of developers are greedy and enter the line of any apartment and compete with each other to convince the property owner to give it to them and they start offering him higher rents, longer time periods and payment in cash and advance.
The suffering of the people of the areas exposed to Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon continues and extends to all aspects of life as they search endlessly for better conditions for displacement in confrontations in which Israeli missiles do not differentiate between a property owner and a tenant.
