Beirut, the city’s exclusive nightclub with a dance floor transformed into a dormitory for displaced people

BEIRUT – “Let’s go, they’re waiting for us at the Skybar.” A month ago, Georges would have been invited to spend an evening in the most exclusive and fashionable nightclub in Beirut. Today it is the proposal to accompany him to distribute basic necessities to 500 displaced people from South Beirut, hosted in the building on the capital’s seafront.

More and more displaced people and winter is approaching. “This morning will be even more difficult. Last night there were at least 12 bombings in Dahiyé (the southern suburbs of Beirut) and there will certainly be many new displaced people around the city. Plus the weather is changing and winter is coming and we need to find suitable blankets and clothes.” Georges is an operator of one of the many Lebanese NGOs that for a month have been trying to support the displaced people, more than a million, caused by the Israeli bombings. Together with him we arrive at the Skybar.

Around the pick-up people are asking for mattresses and food. In front of the circular building there are children playing, elderly people supervising them and clothes hanging out to dry. Upon arrival the pick-up is surrounded by a small crowd, some needing a mattress, some needing food, some asking for some medicine for blood pressure or diabetes. Georges and his colleague patiently listen to everyone, do their best to distribute the load as best as possible and take note of the needs that they cannot satisfy.

From barman to volunteer. Inside, the dance floor has been transformed into a dormitory and the bottle shelves have become makeshift cupboards for the few things people have managed to take from their homes. Skybar employees have changed jobs. Barmen, security and kitchen staff are now looking after the displaced, distributing the aid that arrives and trying to raise funds to support them.

“The State is absent and it is up to us to protect the displaced people”. “When Chafic Khaze, owner of the nightclub, saw the squares and streets of Beirut filling up with people forced to flee, he immediately decided to welcome as many of them as possible here.” Speaking is Michael, manager of the bar. “We all followed him. The State is absent so it’s up to us to move. This is what we Lebanese do in every crisis, it’s in our blood. We will remain open as long as necessary.”

Life suspended between one bombing and the next

“I didn’t think a place like this existed.” None of the Skybar guests had ever entered the club before. “It’s a place for the rich, not for the people of Dahiyé or the South.” Says Hussein, 70 years old lived in a small village on the border with Israel. “For me, life was only my family, who thank God is here, my olive trees, now burned by phosphorus bombs, and my animals, who died from a bomb that landed on the stable. I didn’t imagine that such a place existed, but here they opened the doors to us while those of many mosques and churches remained closed.”

“I am a displaced person, but a luxury one.” We get back into the van and Georges tells us “I’m also a displaced person, but a luxury one. We are Christians from South Beirut, after the first bombings we fled, but luckily a relative gave us a house in Broumana, in the hills above Beirut. A ‘safe’ area, but even there the booms of the bombs reach Beirut, and we live a life suspended between one Israeli attack and another, waiting to find out if under the rubble of a neighborhood or a village someone has died friend or relative.”

The angel of death. For almost a month in the evenings the Lebanese have been waiting for the message from Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-speaking spokesman for the Israeli army. “That man with the cold voice presents the plan to bomb an area of ​​Beirut or some village and tells the population that they have a few minutes to do it.” Georges tells again. “Show precise maps and order the immediate evacuation of homes, shops, schools, hospitals, mosques which will be razed to the ground after a few minutes. Those maps, presented like a shopping list by a man who for me embodies the angel of death, are not simple drawings, they are the life and memories of hundreds of women, children, men and elderly people who will be erased and will never exist again . Avichay Adraee coldly announces to us the end of a part of our country, thanks to the silence and complicity of the entire world, especially your West.”