(21 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon – 21 October 2024
1. Various of scuffles between soldiers, police, and protesters outside the ‘Hamra Star’ building, where displaced residents are being evicted
2. Ambulance arriving to pick up a displaced person who fainted inside building
3. Randa Bitar, a displaced woman from Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon leaving building
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Randa Bitar, displaced from south Lebanon:
"I didn’t see anything because I passed out when I heard all the screaming. I woke up to find them (officers) saying ‘Evacuate the rooms. Evacuate the rooms.’ This is what I woke up to. I packed whatever I can pack, and I left them upstairs. When the situation calms down, I will take my stuff and go stay in the street. I have no place to go. I am a Lebanese person, this is what hurts, is that I am Lebanese and look what happened to us."
5. Officers carrying an elderly woman outside of building
6. Displaced family escorted out of building
7. Displaced family exiting building, UPSOUND (Arabic): "Leave them, let’s leave. They beat us and would kill us, do you think they wouldn’t kick us out?
8. Woman facing soldiers, UPSOUND (Arabic): "We have children and women who can’t sleep in the streets. We have girls and we can’t let them sleep in the streets."
9. Various of person bloodied after getting hit by officers earlier
10. Wide of entrance of building
11. Various of family and police were seen on a balcony after a woman threatened to jump if she is evicted
12. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Suleiman Ahmed, displaced from south Lebanon:
"Where would these displaced people go? What would they do? Who would take them in? There are 400 persons here. Where would they go to now? Winter is coming. Should they live in the streets? We are telling them, we would love it if the war ends and everyone would return to their homes. Nobody is happy about these living conditions. This is not a life. Do they think that they are giving people villas and palaces? It (the building) was abandoned and wrecked in the first place."
13. Various of garbage bins turned upside down
14. Security officers in the street
STORYLINE:
Lebanese police stormed an abandoned building in Beirut on Monday to evict hundreds displaced by Israel’s war on Hezbollah, who have been squatting there for weeks.
Several eyewitnesses told Associated Press that the officers started beating women and children while pulling them out.
"I have no place to go. I am a Lebanese person, this is what hurts, is that I am Lebanese and look what happened to us," Randa Bitar, a displaced woman from Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon, said.
Protesters who arrived for a sit-in were pepper sprayed as well and multiple people were injured and had blood on their clothes.
Lebanese authorities have prepared hundreds of shelters to accommodate the displaced. But with nearly twenty percent of the country’s population, or an estimated 1.2 million people who fled their homes, official shelters have not been able to cope.
Thousands fled their homes since last year, but an Israeli escalation last month has driven out hundreds of thousands of people from the south, Bekaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut, many of them often fleeing with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing.
The formal shelters prepared by the government are mostly at full capacity, housing nearly 200,000 displaced.
The majority of the displaced have sought accommodation with relatives and friends around Lebanon, but many have also taken to beaches, open spaces to set up shelters.
AP video by Lujain Jo
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