Rows of tents now fill the concourse where sports fans once queued for concessions at Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium.
Sports City has become a city of refuge for residents displaced by war. At night, when the clamour of daytime fades, displaced residents can hear and feel each Israeli missile impact on nearby buildings, just a few hundred metres away.
For three days, Abdallah Abu Gharib slept in the stadium’s car park while authorities prepared the site to shelter people displaced by Israeli strikes during the renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah. Sports City finally opened over the weekend.
“Today is my second day here,” he told The National on Monday as he clacked his prayer beads from inside his tent. He counted himself lucky to have a tarpaulin roof, but he'd not bathed in a week – not since fleeing his home in Beirut’s southern suburb, Dahieh.
“Psychologically, I’m OK,” he said. “But the bathrooms have no showers. I can’t exactly bathe in the street. The situation is a bit miserable but we just have to endure it.”
Earlier that day, he watched as a plume of smoke, less than a kilometre away, bloomed out of Dahieh.
“It’s too dangerous,” he muttered under his breath. “I think I might leave.” Then he looked at The National’s reporter, bewildered, and laughed bitterly: “Leave where? Where is there to go?”
Mr Abu Ghraib was eventually allowed inside Sports City after days in the car park, where – like many still waiting – he had slept at his own risk. The lot lies within Beirut’s so-called “red zone,” a swathe of southern suburb marked by Israel as a potential target. When the Israeli army ordered the mass expulsion of residents last week, it circulated a map on social media showing the suburb encircled in red, with the periphery of Sports City included.
Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced by Israeli strikes across Lebanon. Lebanese government estimates put the number of displaced people at least 667,831, although the real figure is probably higher, as many fleeing bombardment have rented apartments in safer areas or stay with relatives. With most government shelters in public schools at capacity, and many people sleeping in the streets, the government has resorted to converting sports stadiums and bus stations to shelter the displaced.
Displaced Lebanese army soldiers
About 750 people are now living inside Sports City as authorities and organisations work to “gradually” make the stadium habitable for up to 6,000 people, according to Naji Hammoud, director general of Lebanon’s sports facilities.
To ensure security, displaced residents must put their name on a list compiled by the Social Affairs Ministry, then vetted by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
The stadium has also become a temporary shelter for an unknown number of Lebanese army soldiers. One soldier, speaking while watching his children play outside the concourse, told The National that “many” soldiers and their families were sheltering there.
“These are soldiers who live in the suburb, and now they and their families have nowhere to go,” said Mr Hammoud. “It’s better to put the [soldiers] in the tents – because they can also help us ensure security inside the stadium.”
On duty LAF soldiers also guard the stadium. Organisers say the security restrictions and soldiers’ presence may help residents feel safer so close to the red zone. Israel has hit several hotels and buildings housing displaced people in the past week, continuing a pattern observed by The National during the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah – leaving many across the country too frightened to host the predominantly Shiite community.
Israel’s military routinely claimed those strikes targeted Hezbollah members, without providing proof. Authorities aim to prevent such scenarios by ensuring civilians are first vetted by the LAF.
Outside the entrance to the stadium compound – guarded by Lebanese soldiers – dozens of people were still sleeping in cars or on the pavement in the car park on Monday, hoping to be admitted.
Among them was Wajida Zreik, in her 50s, who sleeps in her car with her nine-month-pregnant daughter, Fatima. They had come to the stadium hoping to put their names on the list for admission, only to be told they still needed security clearance.
She suggested that those with connections were being given priority access, while others were left waiting outside and exposed to danger.
Angered to tears, Ms Zreik said her entire family had been scattered by the war. Her son now sleeps in a mosque with his young daughter.
“We’ve become homeless in the streets,” she said. “Why should my pregnant daughter sleep in the car in her ninth month? Is that acceptable? Is that any way to live?
“My seven-year-old grandchild calls to tell me, ‘Grandma I’m hungry and cold’, and I can’t do anything for her except cry. Where do we go? What do we do?”
