Beirut property developer among many denied access to fortunes by banks after a financial crisis and now reeling from effects of Israel’s airstrikes

From the balcony of his flat in a monied suburb nestled in the mountains overlooking Beirut, Ibrahim Abdallah could see the smoke rising from a night of airstrikes that pummelled the ghostly southern suburbs below.

Columns of white smoke drifted over the smouldering, scarred and deserted tower blocks and up into the tree-lined hills, where some of those displaced mingle among people taking an evening walk near the presidential palace and the Lebanese defence ministry.