Residents of Beirut, Dahieh Plan to Evacuate Homes if War with Israel Erupts

A large banner shows slain Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and a vow to avenge his killing. (AFP)
A large banner shows slain Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and a vow to avenge his killing. (AFP)
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Residents of Beirut, Dahieh Plan to Evacuate Homes if War with Israel Erupts

A large banner shows slain Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and a vow to avenge his killing. (AFP)
A large banner shows slain Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and a vow to avenge his killing. (AFP)

Israel’s assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahieh has prompted the residents of the area to seek safe haven in regions in case of the eruption of a broader war with Israel.

They have sought to rent apartments in regions such as Bhamdoun, Baabda and Aley - in a form of “temporary displacement” - where they can wait for the latest tensions to blow over.

Some people have been lucky enough to find apartments that they had previously used as summer lodging, while others are looking for furnished apartments as temporary refuge.

Tensions soured last week in wake of Shukr’s assassination and the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Hezbollah and Iran have vowed to retaliate, raising fears that Israel could respond to any attack by targeting Beirut and Hezbollah’s stronghold of Dahieh.

Reina, 51, a resident of Ain al-Rummaneh near Dahieh, said she has taken the decision to move to Bhamdoun throughout August in anticipation of any escalation.

“I won’t venture by going down to Beirut. Maybe Israel would strike roads and bridges like it did in 2006. We can do without more tensions,” she said.

Israel and Hezbollah waged a 33-day war in July 2006 during which the later targeted Dahieh and the South – another Hezbollah stronghold. It also destroyed roads and bridges throughout Lebanon, as well as attacked Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport, putting it out of service.

On Wednesday, Nour, 26, a resident of Dahieh, began searching for a furnished apartment to rent for her and her family in the Baabda and Aley regions that are close to Beirut suburbs.

She said she has searched tirelessly online for the right apartment. “Some large apartments are available, but the conditions for renting them are ridiculous,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Rent has tripled with apartments going for 1,200 dollars a month,” she added. She said that she understood that rent would skyrocket with the high demand, but owners are making impossible conditions, such as asking for an advance payment worth six months' rent, amid a stifling economic crisis in Lebanon.

“We don’t have that kind of money. If the war were to stop within a month or two, then we would have lost thousands of dollars,” she went on to say.

Other options at the people’s disposal are offers from friends to stay over in regions that they believe are safe from Israel should a full-scale war erupt.

Another option is staying in hotels or vacation homes in areas deemed safe, said Nada, a resident of the South and mother of one.

“No one will say no to you if you have the money. You will pay for your safety,” she added.

She revealed that she spoke to the owner of a vacation rental in the Batroun region north of Beirut where she had previously stayed. He promised her that he would give her priority to rent the place should the need arise.

For people who have the financial means, seeking temporary safe haven is not a challenge. But for those whose earnings barely help them get by day by day, leaving home is not an option.

“We don’t want to be humiliated. We will not seek refuge in schools,” a resident of Dahieh told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Our home protects us. Any displacement will humiliate us; we are praying to God to spare us from this,” he added.



An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
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An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)

In January 1981, Jimmy Carter nodded politely toward Ronald Reagan as the new Republican president thanked the Democrat for his administration's help after Reagan resoundingly defeated Carter the previous November.

Twenty years earlier, after a much closer race, Republican Richard Nixon clasped John F. Kennedy's hand and offered the new Democratic president a word of encouragement.

The US has a long tradition of defeated presidential candidates sharing the inauguration stage with the people who defeated them, projecting to the world the orderly transfer of power. It's a practice that Vice President Kamala Harris will resume on Jan. 20 after an eight-year hiatus.

Only once in the television era — with its magnifying effect on a losing candidate's expression — has a defeated candidate skipped the exercise. That candidate, former President Donald Trump, left for Florida after a failed effort to overturn his loss based on false or unfounded theories of voter fraud.

With Harris watching, Trump is scheduled to stand on the Capitol's west steps and be sworn in for a second term.

Below are examples of episodes that have featured a losing candidate in a rite that Reagan called "nothing short of a miracle."

2001: Al Gore and George W. Bush Democrat Al Gore conceded to Republican George W. Bush after 36 days of legal battling over Florida's ballots ended with a divided Supreme Court ruling to end the recount.

But Gore, the sitting vice president, would join Bush on the west steps of the Capitol a month later as the Texas governor was sworn in. After Bush took the oath, he and Gore shook hands, spoke briefly and smiled before Gore returned to his seat clapping along to the presidential anthem, "Hail to the Chief."

A disappointed Gore accepted the outcome and his role in demonstrating continuity of governance, former Gore campaign spokeswoman Kiki McLean said.

"He may have wished, ‘I wish that was me standing there,’" McLean said. "But I don't think Gore for one minute ever doubted he should be there in his capacity as vice president."

Hillary Clinton smiles wide as she and former President Jimmy Carter, from left, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush, and former first lady Laura Bush wait for the start of the inauguration ceremony to swear President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP)

2017: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Democrat Hillary Clinton was candid about her disappointment in losing to Trump in 2016, when — like Gore against Bush — she received more votes but failed to win an Electoral College majority. "Obviously, I was crushed," she told Howard Stern on his radio show in 2019.

Calling Inauguration Day "one of the hardest days of my life," Clinton said she planned to attend Trump's swearing-in out of a sense of duty, having been first lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001. "You put on the best face possible," Clinton said on Stern's show.

2021: Mike Pence (with Trump absent) and Joe Biden Trump four years ago claimed without evidence that his loss to President Joe Biden was marred by widespread fraud. Two weeks earlier, Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol in a violent siege aimed at halting the electoral vote certification.

Instead, then-Vice President Mike Pence was the face of the outgoing administration.

"Sure, it was awkward," Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short said.

Still, Pence and his wife met privately with Biden and his wife to congratulate them in the Capitol before the ceremony, and escorted newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband out of the Capitol afterward, as tradition had prescribed, Short said.

"There was an appreciation expressed for him by members of both chambers in both parties," he said.

1993: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Bush stood on the Capitol's west steps three times for his swearing-in — as vice president twice and in 1989 to be inaugurated as president. He would attend again in 1993 in defeat.

He joined Bill Clinton, the Democrat who beat him, on the traditional walk out onto the east steps. Bush would return triumphantly to the inaugural ceremony eight years later as the father of Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.

1961: Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy Nixon had just lost the 1960 election by fewer than 120,000 votes in what was the closest presidential contest in 44 years. But the departing vice president approached Kennedy with a wide grin, a handshake and an audible "good luck" just seconds after the winning Democrat's swearing-in.

Nixon would have to wait eight years to be sworn in as president, while his losing Democratic opponent — outgoing Vice President Hubert Humphrey — looked on. He was inaugurated a second time after winning reelection in 1972, only to resign after the Watergate scandal.

President-elect Ronald Reagan applauds as outgoing President Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd at Reagan's inaugural ceremony, in Washington, Jan. 20, 1981. (AP Photo, File)

1933: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Like Bush, Hoover would attend just one inauguration as a new president before losing to a Democrat four years later. But Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 swearing-in would not be Hoover's last. Hoover would live for another 31 years, see four more presidents sworn in, and sit in places of honor at the two inaugurations of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1897: Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison Cleveland, the sitting Democratic president, lost reelection in 1888 while winning more popular votes than former Indiana Sen. Benjamin Harrison. But Cleveland still managed to hold Harrison’s umbrella while the Republican was sworn in during a rainy 1889 inauguration.

Elected to a second, non-consecutive term in 1892, Cleveland, however, would stand solemnly behind William McKinley four years later at the Republican's 1897 inauguration, leaving the presidency that day after losing the 1896 nomination of his own party.

Cleveland was the only president to win two non-consecutive terms until Trump's victory in November.