Massive displacement from Israel-Hezbollah war transforms Beirut’s famed commercial street

Beirut: Inside what was once one of Beirut’s oldest and best-known cinemas, dozens of Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians displaced by the Israel-Hezbollah war spend their time following the news on their phones, cooking, chatting and walking around to pass the time.

Outside on Hamra Street, once a thriving economic hub, sidewalks are filled with displaced people, and hotels and apartments are crammed with those seeking shelter. Cafes and restaurants are overflowing.

In some ways, the massive displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from south Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs has provided a boost for this commercial district after years of decline as a result of Lebanon’s economic crisis.

But it is not the revival many had hoped for.

“The displacement revived Hamra Street in a wrong way,” said the manager of a four-star hotel on the boulevard, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the problems the influx has caused for the neighbourhood.

For three weeks after the war intensified in mid-September, his hotel enjoyed full occupancy. Today, it stands at about 65 per cent capacity — still good for this time of year — after some left for cheaper rented apartments.

But, he said, the flow of displaced people has also brought chaos.

Traffic congestion, double parking and motorcycles and scooters scattered on sidewalks has become the norm, making it difficult for pedestrians to walk.

Tensions regularly erupt between displaced people and the district’s residents, he said.

Hamra Street has long been a bellwether for Lebanon’s turbulent politics.

During the country’s heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s, it represented everything that was glamorous, filled with Lebanon’s top movie houses and theatres, cafes frequented by intellectuals and artists, and ritzy shops.

Over the past decades, the street has witnessed rises and falls depending on the situation in the small Mediterranean nation that has been marred by repeated bouts of instability, including a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990. In 1982, Israeli tanks rolled down Hamra Street after Israel invaded the country, reaching all the way to west Beirut.

In recent years, the district was transformed by an influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the war in the neighbouring nation, and businesses were hammered by the country’s financial collapse, which began in 2019.

Israel dramatically escalated its attacks on parts of Lebanon on September 23, killing nearly 500 people and wounding 1,600 in one day after nearly a year of skirmishes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Israeli troops and the militant Hezbollah group. The intensified attacks sparked an exodus of people fleeing the bombardment, including many who slept in public squares, on beaches or pavements around Beirut.