“War Hotels” is a documentary series showing on Al Jazeera that tells stories of iconic hotels that were associated with recent warfare, and two episodes that were aired earlier this month explored the stories of the Holiday Inn and Le Commodore hotels in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War that starte in 1975.
The Holiday Inn opened in 1974 but unfortunately turned into a war only a year later as it became part of the Battle of the Hotels. During that time the fighting militias got into fierce battles to control a group of hotels in the area of Saint-George and Ain El Mrayyseh including the Phoenicia and Holiday Inn.
On the other hand, Le Commodore became famous for being a safe haven for world journalists covering the civil war. Aside from its relatively safe location in Hamra at that time, what also helped was the available of communications lines to allow journalists to report their stories.
The two episodes are quite informative and have very interesting testimonies. You can either watch them on Al Jazeera website here and here or through the below two YouTube videos.