To afford a doctor's appointment for their son, who suffers from heart disease, Jeanne and Joseph El Khoury, a Lebanese couple living in the mountains of Aley, about 15km from the Lebanese capital, were once forced to spend an entire week surviving on labneh.
“We sold our clothes. We sold our watches. That's how we managed. Almost every family has gone through something similar. We've learnt how to survive under any circumstances,” Ms El Khoury told The National. Lebanon’s social security covers only a small fraction of the life-saving treatment her son needs, leaving the family struggling to find the money to keep him alive.
The family has not always lived like this. They were once part of Lebanon's middle class, and lived comfortably until 2019, when the country was rocked by an unprecedented financial crisis from which it has yet to recover, painfully shrinking its GDP by almost 40 per cent.
The economy kept spiralling amid the Covid pandemic and the 2020 Beirut Port explosion. The final blow came in March, when fighting resumed between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah against the backdrop of wider regional hostilities.
“Every time we think we're starting to recover … another crisis comes. With the war, everything has become more expensive. If you're not extremely careful with your money, it's gone,” Ms El Khoury said.
Before the war resumed, estimates had forecast between 4 and 6 per cent growth for Lebanon's economy this year. Updated forecasts now suggest that real GDP could contract by between 7 and 16 per cent, according to Kulluna Irada, an independent Lebanese civil society organisation.
In the absence of social safety nets, any disruption has an outsize effect on lower-income households.
Prices have soared in supermarkets and at the pump, driven by rising global oil prices caused by the Iranian blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Lebanon's latest Consumer Price Index shows inflation running at 19 per cent year on year, with energy and transport recording the steepest increases.
Ms El Khoury said her family's private generator subscription, which is supposed to compensate for Lebanon's failing state electricity, costs more than $120 a month. It does not even provide electricity at night.
Mr El Khoury, who works as an accountant for a US NGO, earns about $1,500 a month. Before the 2019 economic crisis, he said $500 was enough to support his family for a month. Now, they can barely make ends meet.
The National first met the Khoury family six years ago, when the crisis had just begun. Since then, Ms El Khoury has lost her job. As compensation for decades of work, she received 2 million Lebanese pounds, now worth about $20. Earlier this year, the family had to leave Beirut because they could no longer afford rent.
A tale of two countries
Lebanon's banking sector collapsed in 2019. Long praised for its stability, the country's financial system was ultimately revealed to be similar to a Ponzi scheme. When it fell apart, banks were exposed as insolvent and depositors lost access to their life savings. The total cost to the country's finance sector reached $70 billion.
Dollars became scarce, and the Lebanese pound, once pegged to the US currency, lost 98 per cent of its value.
That was seven years ago. Little has changed since.
“Public authorities' deliberate inaction continues to produce harmful effects on the economy and to deepen inequality,” Sibylle Rizk, director of Public Policies at Kulluna Irada, told The National.
People who are paid in the debased national currency, or whose savings or pensions are denominated in it, saw their wealth wiped out. Public sector employees who were part of Lebanon's middle class were among the hardest hit.
For many, the only hope of surviving Lebanon’s gutted economy comes from the diaspora. In 2024, remittances made up 17.7 per cent of Lebanon’s GDP – one of the highest proportions in the world.
However, economists warn that this lifeline may weaken due to the US-Israeli war on Iran. About half of Lebanon's remittances originate in Gulf countries, whose economies could face longer-term repercussions from regional instability.
In contrast, a handful of people were able to benefit from the crisis. These were well-connected citizens who were allowed to transfer their deposits abroad, companies whose debt burdens were slashed as the Lebanese pound collapsed, and businesses that thrived on the state's failures – including those that sell private generators, Ms Rizk said.
Lebanon's economic hardship is not always immediately visible. Beirut's affluent Gemmayze neighbourhood remains bustling, with packed cafes and bars, where prices are close to those of Europe’s most expensive capitals.
Yet appearances are deceiving: crowded restaurants and bars reflect the concentration of wealth among a relatively small segment of the Lebanese population – namely, those who receive their salaries in dollars or are otherwise insulated from the crisis.
This is what researcher Rosalie Berthier refers to as an “invisible poverty trap”. Most Lebanese exist far from the public eye – just like the Khourys, who can barely afford to venture outside their home.
The escape valve
Economic recovery seems a long way off. Iran-backed Hezbollah opened fire on northern Israel on March 2, once again dragging Lebanon into a regional war.
In response, Israel launched a relentless military campaign in Lebanon, demolishing and razing at least 60 villages in the south and leaving the country with a reconstruction bill running into the billions of dollars.
Despite a trilateral framework agreement signed being on June 26 between Lebanon, Israel and the US, the Israeli army continues to occupy about 7 per cent of Lebanese territory in the south, preventing tens of thousands of people from returning home.
Mohamed Aliyan is among those who cannot return home. Originally from Burj Qalaway, his village has suffered heavy damage from Israeli strikes.
When he returned a few days ago, he found nothing but ruins, with the village cut off from water and electricity. He cannot rebuild his destroyed home until the situation returns to normal. And with the US-Iran ceasefire having collapsed, he is not sure when that will be.
He and his family remain in Beirut, staying in a school that has been converted into a displacement centre. With the help of international organisations, the Lebanese state has set up aid programmes, but Mr Aliyan has never received any help, despite applying for it.
Before October 2023, when the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began, Mr Aliyan had a comfortable life working in construction in his village. Now, he is unable to find work in his field, and instead works for his brother’s mini market, earning about $35 a day – too little to afford to live in Beirut.
Mr Aliyan is one of many southerners whose livelihoods have been devastated by the war. The International Labour Organisation found that since the fighting resumed, one in three workers had lost their jobs, while average income had plunged by about 40.4 per cent.
“You tell yourself, maybe tomorrow things will get better. But tomorrow comes and nothing changes. No family can survive like this forever,” Mr Aliyan said. “The entire south is destroyed. Even if peace returns tomorrow, it'll take years before you can find work again. The only solution is to leave.”
Many have reached the same conclusion. About 800,000 have left the country since 2020, according to official statistics.
Amid Lebanon's endless crises, the Khourys and Mr Aliyan have come to realise that their children's best chance at a future lies outside their homeland.
“It's heartbreaking to raise your children only to see them leave, but there is no future here,” Ms El Khoury said.
