Ruth Michaelson
The Observer / November 16, 2024
Beirut property developer among many denied access to fortunes by banks after a financial crisis and now reeling from effects of Israel’s airstrikes.
From the balcony of his flat in a monied suburb nestled in the mountains overlooking Beirut, Ibrahim Abdallah could see the smoke rising from a night of airstrikes that pummelled the ghostly southern suburbs below.
Columns of white smoke drifted over the smouldering, scarred and deserted tower blocks and up into the tree-lined hills, where some of those displaced mingle among people taking an evening walk near the presidential palace and the Lebanese defence ministry.
Abdallah and his family are still members of the nearby country club, but earlier this year he sold his 10-metre-long boat with a plush cream leather interior. Last year, he sold a flat, located among embassy buildings in the pricier neighbourhood farther uphill, that was intended for his young son.
He has $2m in the bank and the receipts to prove it, but weathering Lebanon’s multiple financial and political crises has left Abdallah selling the trappings of his former life to sustain himself and his family.
It now includes his parents and two siblings, along with their families, all 16 sheltering in his house and sleeping on the living room floor each night, feeling the blast waves and hearing the bombardments raining down among their flats in the neighbourhoods below.
A house that he built for his family in their village, close to the de facto border with Israel, was destroyed beyond repair in a strike earlier this year.
“Here’s how it feels: you made your dreams come true, but were forced to give it up. You achieved your aims, then someone takes it away from you,” he said.
His troubles began after he returned to Lebanon after 17 years living and working as a high-end property developer in Dubai, rubbing shoulders with Ivanka and Donald Trump – whom he refers to as “my friend” – and the king of Saudi Arabia.
Abdallah arrived in Beirut in 2019, a few weeks before anti-government protests overtook the capital and the country, demanding the removal of the elite group of politicians who have clung to power since the end of Lebanon’s civil war. It was a movement he eagerly joined.
His wife, Diana, quit her job as a bank manager in support. In response to the upheaval, the country’s banks shut, leaving Abdallah locked out of his savings and with no cash in the house. Overnight, he lost access to his money.
What followed was later described by the World Bank as one of the worst economic and financial crises globally in 150 years, catapulting much of the country into poverty. As Lebanon staggered forward, it was hit by the effects of the Covid pandemic and a deadly explosion in Beirut’s port in 2020 that destroyed large parts of the capital.
Abdallah continued to protest, joining and organising a group of depositors who vented their fury – first by attacking bank branches and later going as far as to try robbing them to get their deposits back, in the hope of inspiring others to do the same.
The 44-year-old has found himself at the crossroads of each of the main crises to hit Lebanon over the past five years. This includes escalating Israeli bombardments intended to target Hezbollah, killing over 3,300 people since last year, as well as displacing at least 1.4 million, according to Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati.
Abdallah has no association with the Islamist militant group and even ran for parliament two years ago on an independent ticket, pitting himself against Amal and Hezbollah, political parties that traditionally represent the Shia community in southern Lebanon.
This did little to spare his house in the village of Khiam that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike earlier this year.
“They hit my house, which sits alone on a hill. Why would they want to hit my house? It is a lie that they’re targeting Hezbollah – I am certain that they just want to destroy things. They want to pit people against each other,” he said.
Abdallah had tears in his eyes as he remembered his last visit to the property he used to call his “dream house”, with its vistas on to the occupied Golan Heights and northern Israel, and where his children would play in the swimming pool and the family would barbecue under the stars. His uncle had helped him select the right plot of land in their family’s village and Abdallah spared no expense when building the two-floor property with its sleek stone and wood-panelled exterior.
When he last set foot there, to collect some bottles of olive oil and a few belongings, it was days after the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas militants on towns and kibbutzim around Gaza, which killed about 1,200 people. There had been some initial rocket fire from Hezbollah into Israeli territory in a show of support for Hamas, but Abdallah never thought his house would be affected. All that he has left are photos of the charred skeleton of the building, its proud exterior now a tangled wreck of jagged concrete with gaping holes where the walls once stood and debris filling the swimming pool. When a cousin in Khiam called to tell Abdallah his house had been struck in April, the man better known for burning tyres outside banks and yelling about corruption retreated to his bedroom to weep.
“It’s destroyed – there is no ceiling. It can only be demolished,” he said. “Even if I wanted to rebuild it, my money is stuck in the bank. I want to be able to rebuild our future. But the banks have taken all our money.”
His parents’ flat in the middle of Beirut’s southern suburbs was also ripped apart by an airstrike that hit an adjacent building, and Abdallah’s voice broke as he described the damage. The flat, which is now a mess of broken glass and shredded concrete, “has a story”, he said: the family bought it to ease his brother’s journey to his cancer treatment two decades ago.
He remains disappointed that the government failed to prepare for the effects of the escalating war, furious at the politicians and elites who managed to move their money out of Lebanon while others suffered and disenchanted with many of the revolutionaries he once protested alongside.
Abdallah fears what he describes as rising internal conflict, wary of the flags from different political and sometimes armed groups that now line the highways and hang from buildings in Beirut.
“This war between the United States and Iran is affecting us internally,” he said. “All I know is that we are innocent victims of a war that we’re not part of. To be honest, I see a dark future.” Abdallah’s balcony also has a clear view of the tarmac of Beirut’s airport and out on to the Mediterranean. Like many in Lebanon, he and his family are looking for ways out, ideally to the Emirates, despite repeated and mysterious denials of a work visa to his longtime former home.
“I love this country but I want my kids to live somewhere else,” he said. “All I need is to work again. I don’t like to be negative, let them destroy whatever, I just want to go back to work. I want a decent life. It’s not for me, it’s for my kids’ futures.”
Ruth Michaelson is a journalist based in Istanbul
