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Beirut Bishop Warns Against Selling Ravaged Historic Houses

A Lebanese couple inspect the damage to their house in an area overlooking the destroyed Beirut Port on Aug. 5, in the aftermath of a pair of massive explosions in the Lebanese capital. Joseph Eid/AFP
A Lebanese couple inspect the damage to their house in an area overlooking the destroyed Beirut Port on Aug. 5, in the aftermath of a pair of massive explosions in the Lebanese capital. Joseph Eid/AFP
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Beirut Bishop Warns Against Selling Ravaged Historic Houses

A Lebanese couple inspect the damage to their house in an area overlooking the destroyed Beirut Port on Aug. 5, in the aftermath of a pair of massive explosions in the Lebanese capital. Joseph Eid/AFP
A Lebanese couple inspect the damage to their house in an area overlooking the destroyed Beirut Port on Aug. 5, in the aftermath of a pair of massive explosions in the Lebanese capital. Joseph Eid/AFP

Metropolitan bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch for the Archdiocese of Beirut, Elias Audi, warned on Sunday residents living in disaster-stricken areas affected by the August 4 explosion, from falling victims to some real estate agents asking to buy their properties.

“I call on residents to withstand in their homes,” the bishop said Sunday.

Some 300,000 people were displaced when the explosion damaged or destroyed their homes, killing more than 178 people and injuring 6,000 more. The blast demolished entire neighborhoods of Lebanon’s capital in seconds.

Audi’s warnings came in light of recent reports saying mysterious buyers were offering to buy broken homes in the traditional neighborhoods of Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael, and Ashrafieh for a compelling sum of money.

The complaints drove Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni to issue a decree last week for preventing the sale of any historic building without getting permission from the ministry of culture. The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the move aims to prevent any “exploitation.”

Also, Caretaker Culture Minister Abbas Murtada said no damaged houses could be sold or registered without being fully renovated and without getting the approval of the ministry.

Audi said: “It is necessary to warn residents not to fall victim to real estate agents and financiers swooping on people’s properties and trying to benefit from their woes by offering money in return of their houses.”

He called on residents of Ashrafieh and nearby neighborhoods not to fall into this trap and to preserve their homes.

“We will cooperate all together to emerge from this crisis,” he said.

For his part, Lebanese Deputy Hagop Terzian called on caretaker Justice Minister Marie Claude Najm to issue a decree preventing notaries from registering any transactions related to the selling of houses damaged by the Beirut port explosion.

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Trump Launches Large-scale Strikes on Yemen's Houthis, at Least 24 Killed

Smoke rises from a position following airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, 15 March 2025. Three airstrikes targeted a neighborhood in Sana'a, causing powerful explosions, the Houthis-run Al-Masirah TV has reported. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Smoke rises from a position following airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, 15 March 2025. Three airstrikes targeted a neighborhood in Sana'a, causing powerful explosions, the Houthis-run Al-Masirah TV has reported. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
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Trump Launches Large-scale Strikes on Yemen's Houthis, at Least 24 Killed

Smoke rises from a position following airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, 15 March 2025. Three airstrikes targeted a neighborhood in Sana'a, causing powerful explosions, the Houthis-run Al-Masirah TV has reported. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Smoke rises from a position following airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, 15 March 2025. Three airstrikes targeted a neighborhood in Sana'a, causing powerful explosions, the Houthis-run Al-Masirah TV has reported. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB

US President Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, killing at least 24 people at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.
Trump also warned Iran, the Houthis' main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support for the group. He said if Iran threatened the United States, "America will hold you fully accountable and, we won't be nice about it!"
The unfolding strikes - which one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks - represent the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramps up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear program.
"To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!" Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
At least 13 civilians were killed and nine injured in US strikes on Yemen's capital Sanaa, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
At least 11 others, including four children and one woman, were killed and 14 were injured in a US strike on the northern province of Saada, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported.
The Houthis' political bureau described the attacks as a "war crime."
"Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation," it said in a statement.
Residents in Sanaa said the strikes hit a building in a Houthi stronghold.
"The explosions were violent and shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children," one of the residents, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia, told Reuters.
Another strike on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada led to a power cut, Al-Masirah TV reported early on Sunday. Dahyan is where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.
The Houthis, an armed movement that took control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched scores of attacks on ships off its coast since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that have burned through stocks of US air defenses.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis have attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023. The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel's war in Gaza with Hamas militants.
Iran's other allies, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been severely weakened by Israel since the start of the Gaza conflict. Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who was closely aligned with Tehran, was overthrown by the opposition in December.
But throughout, Yemen's Houthis have remained resilient and often on the offensive, sinking two vessels, seizing another and killing at least four seafarers in an offensive that disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to reroute to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.
The US administration of then-President Joe Biden had sought to degrade the Houthis' ability to attack vessels off its coast but limited the US actions.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Trump has authorized a more aggressive approach.
STRIKES ACROSS YEMEN
The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea, officials said.
The US military's Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday's strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen.
"Houthi attacks on American ships & aircraft (and our troops!) will not be tolerated; and Iran, their benefactor, is on notice," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X. "Freedom of Navigation will be restored."
Trump held out the prospect of far more devastating military action against Yemen.
"The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective," Trump wrote.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the US government had "no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy."
"End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people," he said in an X post on early Sunday.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.
The US attacks came just days after a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from Trump was delivered, seeking talks over Iran's nuclear program.
Khamenei on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the United States.
Still, Tehran is increasingly concerned that mounting public anger over economic hardships could erupt into mass protests, four Iranian officials told Reuters.
Last year, Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, in retaliation for Iranian missile and drone attacks, reduced Tehran's conventional military capabilities, according to US officials.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is dramatically accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
In an apparent sign of US efforts to improve ties with Russia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to inform him about the US strikes in Yemen, the State Department said. Russia has relied on Iranian-provided weaponry in its war in Ukraine, including missiles and drones, US and Ukrainian officials say.