In the "Beshara Rizk" neighborhood, which overlooks the ruined port of Beirut, Bilal Hassan (45 years) stands on the sidewalk of his house and is located in the destroyed home, sometimes he gets lost around himself back and forth, and then he complains to his comrades.
“25 years ago I worked, got married and furnished my house and became the father of 3 children, then I lost everything in one moment on the eve of August 4,” so Bilal began his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, then sighed, “But I won my wife and my children who survived by a divine miracle from the midst of destruction with injuries Eloquent. "
Bilal is one of hundreds of heads of families in Beirut who have not yet healed their wounds from the catastrophe of the explosion, only to find themselves displaced outside their homes after they became uninhabitable.
Since he married Bilal, he rented his house on the third floor, which was in danger of falling, and he also rented the ground floor in the building to be the neighborhood's "shop", recalling those difficult moments that left psychological pain that exceeds the physical pain of his family, as he described.
Bilal told Al-Jazeera Net, "I heard the sounds of explosions coming from the port. I left my home towards the giant tree to take pictures of the rising smoke, then the last explosion rang out. I ran away and found my locality and the building destroyed. I rushed to the house to rescue my family members whose blood had been smeared on the ground and broken furniture."
Bilal - who was able to save his family after finding his neighbor died after a roof fell on her head - lost his home, his livelihood, and even his car, which was parked near the shop.
"No one paid any attention to us," he says, "I rented a furnished house for my family outside Beirut until I find a solution to my misfortune because I am unable to cover the cost of the new housing."
Displaced families
With the approach of winter, the housing crisis is intensifying in Beirut, in which homes have been sown for destruction, while the responsible authorities have not yet taken the initiative to provide quick and serious solutions to thousands of families threatened with displacement.
This reality imposed by the explosion of the port comes in parallel with the worst economic crisis experienced by the Lebanese in their modern history, and their national currency has collapsed to very low levels, poverty has expanded and unemployment levels have risen, in return for the exorbitant rise in the prices of food and raw materials, as well as building materials needed to repair homes.
Hundreds of meters away from Bilal, elderly Yvonne Haddad (75 years) walks, contemplating in sorrow the destroyed Beirut homes, and heading to inspect her brother's house, which was damaged as well as her house in the Jeitaoui area.
Yvonne told Al-Jazeera Net, "For more than 7 decades in which I lived the wars in Lebanon, all of them were less than this disaster that befell us, and our losses in lives and property are great, which we cannot compensate, while our money is being held by banks."
She added that she had asked some volunteers to put nylon sheets for her in her home, because she could not secure the cost of the destroyed balcony glass before the onset of winter.
At one of the sidewalks of "Mar Mikhael" sits Maher Daher, 35, who used to work in a club in Beirut, but he lost his job after the outbreak of the Corona virus and the economic paralysis in the country.
Daher says to Al-Jazeera Net, "I thought that I was living in a tragedy until the port explosion came, a fatal blow that destroyed my entire house, and I cannot rent instead of it after I lost all its furniture, and I live temporarily with my relatives in Ghobairi," and he asks denouncing, "What is the last of this humiliation that has happened? We live with our children? "
Total and Partial Destruction
In the context, Beirut Mayor Jamal Itani tells Al-Jazeera Net that there are between 80,000 and 100,000 families in Beirut whose homes were damaged or completely destroyed, in exchange for the destruction of more than 5,000 residential buildings.
Itani stated that the leadership of the Lebanese Army, in cooperation with the municipality and the High Relief Commission, is seeking to provide a number of free housing for the afflicted families outside Beirut, stressing that they were able to help about a thousand families, but the problem is that more than 90% of the people refuse to live outside the capital, and resort to homes Their relatives that were not harmed.
He pointed out that some families have begun to notify the High Relief Commission for the damage they have suffered, and “the municipality is making every effort to repair the facades of the houses to protect them from winter, but we are working with the Audit Bureau to find a legal formula that allows us to repair inside, because we cannot dispose of the municipality’s money from Without the approval of the Ministry of the Interior and the Audit Bureau, until a solution is found soon with insurance companies that have not yet taken the initiative to contribute to covering repairs for families whose policy includes the damage caused by disasters.
Legal cases
at the campus of a church on Gemayzeh Street, the Beirut Bar Association set up a tent where a number of lawyers sat to receive complaints from the afflicted families.
Lawyer Ruwolf Tannous says to Al-Jazeera Net that the Syndicate has opened the way for all families whose homes have been partially or totally damaged to file free lawsuits through the Syndicate to demand compensation due to them.
According to Tannous, the lawyers take the title deed or rent with a copy of the identity of the owner of the house, an external image of the building and another showing the damage inside, to fill out a request and transfer it to the union’s operations room with the aim of filing lawsuits before the Justice Council to demand compensation.
He added, "So far, we have been able to file about 250 lawsuits, including those with the deaths, tenants and homeowners, which are not cases against unknown persons - especially since there are 25 detainees in the port case - and we may go to file them against them and against everyone who is proven involved in the explosion."
For her part, the civil legal advisor to the old tenants, Attorney Maya Ja`ara, points out that most of the destroyed homes in the neighborhoods of Al-Rimal, Al-Dawwar, Al-Saifi, Al-Jameza and Mar Mikhael are old tenants, and "they are the weakest link and face a difficult fate after the explosion, especially since most of them are elderly, and they may find Themselves are effectively homeless on the streets. "
Jara added to Al-Jazeera Net that "there are a number of landlords trying to restrict tenants to benefit from the crisis, while amendments to the laws related to them must be expedited, taking into account the great damage that has befallen these tenants so that they are not subject to the extortions of the owners of new investment contracts whose value is fictitious." Exceeding the citizens' capacity and the value of the minimum wage. "