As war drums beat, those in Beirut suburb have nowhere to flee

BEIRUT (Reuters) - When war last came to the edges of Lebanon's capital nearly two decades ago, Bilal Sahlab drove his family to a secluded mountain town, rented an apartment and waited out the bombing.

This time around, there's no car, no rent money, and no sense of when hostilities may end.

Residents of Beirut's mainly Shi'ite southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, have been on edge since an Israeli airstrike on their neighbourhood last week killed the top military commander of Shi'ite armed group Hezbollah, along with five civilians.

That same day, the leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas was also assassinated in Tehran. Hezbollah and other allies of Iran have vowed to retaliate against Israel.

Many in Dahiyeh feared the airstrike in their midst signalled that hostilities - playing out for 10 months in parallel to the Gaza war but so far mostly contained to the border area between Lebanon and Israel - were now hitting home.

In the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Israeli strikes flattened buildings in Dahiyeh, sending residents fleeing to other towns and cities for safety.

For Sahlab, that is no longer an option. A five-year economic meltdown has devalued the local pound, cost him his savings, and brought his monthly salary down from more than $5,000 to barely $500.

So he sent his wife and children to live with his in-laws in the mountainous Aley region east of Beirut for their safety, while he stayed in Dahiyeh to keep working.

"It's safer for them up there," he told Reuters, breaking down into tears. "I can't go up because I need to work to contribute to their expenses."

TAKING ADVANTAGE

Following last week's strike, residents of Dahiyeh told Reuters that they had begun searching for apartments either in Aley or further east in the Bekaa Valley.

But when demand rose, monthly rent prices in those areas spiked, sometimes reaching $1,000 - far too expensive for those of modest means.

Fatima Seifeddine, 53, found an apartment for $500 a month in the Bekaa. But her monthly salary of just $300 as a university janitor meant it was out of reach.

"Back in 2006, we moved from place to place until we ended up in a hotel hosting displaced families - but there are no options like that now," she told Reuters by phone.

Even staying with family has become a challenge.

The night of the strike, Majed Zeaiter, a 50-year-old man who drives a van taxi in Dahiyeh, drove his wife and five children more than 50 kilometres (30 miles) north to Afka to stay with his brother's family in a small apartment.

"The situation scares me... it's a crisis situation, and when you think about war you're afraid for your children," he told Reuters. "The bombing, the war - with every month that passes, the situation gets worse."

All seven of them slept in one room for the night. But his brother wasn't earning enough to host them, so early the next morning Zeaiter drove back to Dahiyeh to keep working.

The search for accommodation is complicated by the sectarian enmities and fault lines that still crisscross Lebanon decades after the end of its 1975-90 civil war, making it trickier than in the past for Dahiyeh residents to find shelter.

In 2006, Dahiyeh residents were hosted in some Christian neighbourhoods thanks to a Hezbollah alliance with a Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement, sealed months earlier.

But with tensions running high between the two parties this year, and with Hezbollah criticised by other Christian parties who say the Shi'ite movement unilaterally dragged the country into war, some Shi'ite families feel less welcome in Christian areas.

One Lebanese man who lives in a mostly Christian part of Beirut said he wanted to bring his grandmother out of Dahiyeh following last week's Israeli strike, which hit around the corner from her home.

But he said he was worried his neighbours would discriminate against her because she wears a headscarf.

In one case in an area predominantly home to the Druze minority, a displaced Shi'ite family said they arrived to the apartment they were intending to rent to find town residents, some of them armed, blocking their entry, according to local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

On social media, some users said Shi'ite families should not be allowed to rent in areas where other sects live, accusing Shi'ites of having brought the war upon themselves.

Nasser, a 70-year-old man working as a driver, told Reuters he was keen to leave Dahiyeh with his family but felt both tensions and prices were too high.

"No one's being empathetic, or understanding that it's a situation of war and we need to help each other out," he said.

"Instead, people are taking advantage of each other and eating each other alive."

(This story has been corrected to change dollar to local pound in paragraph 7)

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Laila Bassam, Mohammed Atti and Emilie Madi; Editing by Peter Graff)