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At his home, which was destroyed by the Beirut explosion, its traditional arched façade and damage to its high ceiling, Bassam Bassila is resisting pressure he says he is being put under by the owner of a neighboring tower to buy his property , which he inherited from his family.
Residents, engineers and local officials speak of brokers and investors touring neighborhoods whose buildings were destroyed or cracked in the blast, offering sums of money to their owners, most of whom are unable to repair them.
“The owner of a property near us that has a large tower … is trying to pressure me to sell him the house I have until he demolishes it,” Basila, 68, who lives in the first floor of an old heritage building in the town of Mono, east of Beirut. state.
Basila recounts how he previously turned down a tempting offer from the investor to sell his 450-square-meter house. This investor had managed to acquire the ground floor of the same property. “In the end, you will go,” he said at that moment.
Today, according to Basila, the man refuses to “reinforce the basement.” “If you don’t do that, my house may fall … It’s supposed to support the building,” he added.
Then he continues angry: “After the explosion, nobody asked for us, as if we were not present.”
More than three weeks after the terrible explosion, a group of volunteer engineers inspected Basila’s house, who assured him that he could stay in the house, but repairing it would take time. No one came from the authorities.
The explosion knocked down beautiful arches that turned into piles of stones. It knocked down part of the balcony floor and the roof of the house, which is more than twenty feet tall, cracked.
“I was born in this house and my father was born in it before me … I can’t live in another house,” says Basila, a former photographer who lives in a taxi today. “If help is available, we can repair, without it, we cannot.”
The Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael, and Mono districts include dozens of heritage buildings, which are generally distinguished by their large area, ornate walls, internal arches, and high ceilings.
The Ministry of Culture conducted a survey with organizations that covered 576 heritage buildings. 86 damaged buildings were counted: 44 of them are at risk of total collapse and require full support and 41 are at risk of partial collapse.
Three days after the port blast, as residents of the area flocked to his office to report damage to their property, an unexpected visitor called Mukhtar Rmeil Bishara Ghulam’s office.
“One person came to me and told me he was a broker and expressed his desire to buy houses that had been damaged by the explosion,” Ghulam tells France Presse, expressing his willingness to pay the amount set by the owners.
“I told him we would not sell,” he adds firmly.
Following the circulation of news of attractive dollar offers in the face of the economic collapse and the evaporation of the US currency from the markets for months, political and religious references warn of “crow runners” roaming the devastated neighborhoods of Beirut.
The Ministry of Culture issued a decision prohibiting the sale of damaged real estate until after the completion of the restoration. The Ministry of Finance also prohibited the sale of property of a patrimonial and historical nature, except with the prior approval of the Ministry of Culture, “to avoid the exploitation of the current situation in the affected areas.”
Papers were hung on the walls of several houses that said “My house is not for sale.”
Since the explosion, members of the “Save Beirut Heritage” association have been busy assessing the condition of the buildings. So do dozens of volunteer engineers from the Union of Engineers or major engineering companies and various associations.
The association’s founder, Naji Raji, talks to France Press about “news we receive from people who have been approached by investors affiliated with certain politicians” to buy their properties.
He considers that the “concern” of investors is to achieve “only an economic benefit, taking into account that the area is tourism par excellence.”
In the middle of Gemmayze Street, which has always been packed with pubs and cafes, the gendarmerie put a two-story building on paper asking residents to evacuate it until the danger of its collapse was confirmed.
In the building, engineer Rita Saadeh (23) inspects the damage to her house, which she inherited from her mother’s grandparents. A traditional chandelier hangs in one of the rooms, the walls of which are painted light green, with its three arches still standing, but its floor is wrinkled after the foundation of the house was damaged. On the floor of the next room, a precious cup glass splattered with debris from wooden doors and a handmade table cover.
The building must be strengthened and restored before its residents return. “This is a heritage site and it must be restored,” Rita told France Press, noting that she is trying “to reach out to non-governmental organizations to provide funding, because we personally cannot restore it on our own.”
During her visit to Beirut on Thursday, the Director General of the United Nations Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organization, Audrey Ozilai, warned that the restoration process would take a long time and hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Without its historic neighborhoods and without its creators, Beirut will not be Beirut,” he said, warning that the “soul” of the city “is at stake.”
After the civil war (1975-1990), the private company “Solidere” established by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri took over the reconstruction of the destroyed central district of Beirut. This generated widespread criticism of the process of buying collective real estate at low prices compared to what became real estate after reconstruction, and many felt that the reconstruction process did not take into account the spirit of the old neighborhoods, Rather, it was designed to attract investment, tourists, and wealthy people.
At the end of Gemmayzeh Street, Alan Chaul stands in front of a building he owns that has been badly damaged and says, “All I want is for my house to be the way it was.”
Then he asks excitedly: “The price of my house is three million dollars … the cost to repair it is two hundred thousand dollars, and I don’t have a pound to repair it, what should I do?”
And if selling is the solution, he responds: “This is our story. I’m not selling it.”
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