Um Yumna’s family did not have any options for staying in Beirut. Her children made an offer to the investor to buy an apartment in the new building, but they were rejected definitively and without justification. They resorted to some of the real estate offices to search for an apartment in the same area, but after the 2006 War [6], the prices of apartments there had risen up to $250,000. The family saw that instead of taking out loans to buy an apartment in Beirut, it would be more appropriate to invest in rehabilitating the Barja house, with its four apartments and shops that they could profit from by renting them out. During that period, Um Yumna fell ill and was hospitalized more than once. In the end, there was nothing she could do but give in to the option available in Barja.

As for Um Yumna’s elderly neighbours, they did not have the same options. While the options that Um Yumna and her family had were essentially dependent on the children’s ability to obtain loans because some of them were employed, the eviction compensation was the only means that some of Um Yumna’s neighbours and their families had in order to manage a lease on another apartment. But it had to be outside the city in the farther suburbs where prices were cheaper, in order to benefit longer from the compensation which was no more than $20,000. As for other neighbours, they moved in with their sons or daughters.

[6] 33 days war with Israel in the month of July 2006 during which the biggest part of Beirut’s southern suburb was destroyed.