Architect who died in Beirut blast embodied ties that bind France and Lebanon

1 / 3
Prominent Lebanon-based architect Jean-Marc Bonfils died in the Beirut explosion. (Screengrab YouTube)
2 / 3
The East Village tower — a 13-floor structure with two pools, an impressive 300-square-meter vertical garden and the Galerie Tanit art gallery. (Image: Jean Marc Bonfils Architects)
3 / 3
The East Village tower is nestled among Beirut's buildings in the narrow streets. (Image: Jean Marc Bonfils Architects)
Short Url
Updated 02 September 2020
Follow

Architect who died in Beirut blast embodied ties that bind France and Lebanon

  • Jean-Marc Bonfils was born to a family that had moved to Lebanon from France during the 19th century
  • East Village tower in Mar Mikhael where he lived and died represented his signature architectural style

DUBAI: Just minutes before the explosions rocked Beirut on Aug. 4, Jean-Marc Bonfils was at the window of his apartment in the East Village tower in Mar Mikhael, filming a video of the fire at the city’s nearby port.

It was the last thing the French-Lebanese architect posted on his Facebook page before the main explosion ripped through the city and claimed his life. Badly injured in the blast, he was taken to the American University of Beirut Medical Center where he died a few hours later. He was 57 years old.

For the long-time defender of Lebanese heritage, the East Village tower — a 13-floor structure with two pools, an impressive 300-square-meter vertical garden and the Galerie Tanit art gallery — represented his signature architectural style: a fusion of modern architecture and elements taken from traditional Lebanese structures. The tragedy reduced it to rubble.

“Bonfils was a very open and kind man — even if he could be tough sometimes, his students loved him,” said Naila Kettaneh Kunigk, the founder of Galerie Tanit, which was destroyed by the explosion.

“He was a very sweet man with lots of energy and always understanding. He put so much love into the East Village tower and received several international prizes for it.”

The slim apartment building was built from dark stone and wood, reminiscent of traditional Lebanese architecture. In 2015 it won the Asia Architecture Award in the housing division.

Both Kunigk and Bonfils were members of the National Heritage Foundation. When she was planning to open a gallery, he offered to help.




The two photos show the damage caused by the Beirut blast (L), the windows smashed out, the vertical garden destroyed. (Image: Jean Marc Bonfils Architects)

“He told me he wouldn’t just design my gallery but build my gallery,” she said. “I was skeptical at first as I just wanted to have a showroom, but he created such as beautiful plan that I immediately agreed.”

Bonfils, who was born in 1963 in Beirut to a family that had moved to Lebanon from France during the 19th century, was a prominent figure in the reconstruction of Beirut’s downtown area following the country’s devastating civil war. His father, Maurice Bonfils, was also a well-known architect in Beirut.

The younger Bonfils studied at the Paris-Villemin School of Architecture, the École du Louvre and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Early in his career he trained with some of the most cutting-edge French architects of the 1980s and 1990s, including Christian de Portzamparc, Alain Sarfati, Architecture-Studio, ARTE-Charpentier, and Maurice Bonfils architects.

In 1995, he and his father were chosen to lead the reconstruction of downtown Beirut. It was a challenging project and occupied him throughout the rest of his life. In 2005, after his father retired, Bonfils launched his own firm, Jean-Marc Bonfils Architects, which created some of the most ground-breaking structures in Lebanon, spanning residential, commercial, cultural and multi-use projects.

It employed about 15 architects and carried out close to 100 projects in the Middle East and internationally, including in France, Nigeria, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Notable projects include the Villa Hajjar in Hazmieh, Lebanon, Impact BBDO’s head office in Dubai, several public schools and two eco-museums in Turbol and Ras Baalbeck.

He worked on urban planning in other Lebanese cities, including Byblos and Baalbek. He also taught at the American University of Beirut and, later, at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, and served as an adviser to former Lebanese Minister of Culture Mohamed Youssef Beydoun.

French Minister of Culture Roselyn Bachelot confirmed that Bonfils was among 21 French nationals who died in the Beirut blast. At the time of his death, he was designing several private villas and a hospital, for which he had won a competition.

He was also working on the re-establishment of the Lebanese National Library. Until the end, Lebanon, and in particular its rich history, culture and heritage, was of the utmost importance to Bonfils, who devoted a large part of his life to the reconstruction of battle-scarred Beirut.

Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor
 


Palestinian, Egyptian officials say Israeli tanks move close to Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt

Updated 49 min 35 sec ago
Follow

Palestinian, Egyptian officials say Israeli tanks move close to Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt

  • Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them children and women, according to Gaza health officials
  • Israel’s War Cabinet decided to continue the Rafah operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian security official and an Egyptian official say Israeli tanks entered the southern Gaza town of Rafah, reaching as close as 200 meters (yards) from its crossing with neighboring Egypt.
The Egyptian official said the operation appeared to be limited in scope. He and Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV said Israeli officials informed the Egyptians that the troops would withdraw after completing the operation.
The Israeli military declined to comment. On Sunday, Hamas fighters near the Rafah crossing fired mortars into southern Israel, killing four Israeli soldiers.
The Egyptian official, located on the Egyptian side of Rafah, and the Palestinian security official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
The Associated Press could not independently verify the scope of the operation.
Earlier Monday, Israel’s War Cabinet decided to push ahead with a military operation in Rafah, after Hamas announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari proposal for a ceasefire deal. The Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in Rafah without providing details.

Hamas announced its acceptance Monday of an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its “core demands” and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Still, Israel said it would continue negotiations.
The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip. Hanging over the wrangling was the threat of an all-out Israeli assault on Rafah, a move the United States strongly opposes and that aid groups warn will be disastrous for some 1.4 million Palestinians taking refuge there.
Hamas’s abrupt acceptance of the ceasefire deal came hours after Israel ordered an evacuation of some 100,000 Palestinians from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, signaling an invasion was imminent.
Israel’s War Cabinet decided to continue the Rafah operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. At the same time, it said that while the proposal Hamas agreed to “is far from meeting Israel’s core demands,” it would send negotiators to Egypt to work on a deal.
The Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah. The nature of the strikes was not immediately known, but the move appeared aimed at keeping the pressure on as talks continue.
President Joe Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated US concerns about an invasion of Rafah. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said American officials were reviewing the Hamas response “and discussing it with our partners in the region.” An American official said the US was examining whether what Hamas agreed to was the version signed off to by Israel and international negotiators or something else.
It was not immediately known if the proposal Hamas agreed to was substantially different from one that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed the militant group to accept last week, which Blinken said included significant Israeli concessions.
Egyptian officials said that proposal called for a ceasefire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and partial Israeli troop pullbacks within Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal out of the territory, they said.
Hamas sought clearer guarantees for its key demand of an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal in return for the release of all hostages, but it wasn’t clear if any changes were made.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly rejected that trade-off, vowing to keep up their campaign until Hamas is destroyed after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
Netanyahu is under pressure from hard-line partners in his coalition who demand an attack on Rafah and could collapse his government if he signs onto a deal. But he also faces pressure from the families of hostages to reach a deal for their release.
Thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate agreement. About a thousand protesters swelled near the defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, where police tried to clear the road. In Jerusalem, about a hundred protesters marched toward Netanyahu’s residence with a banner reading, “The blood is on your hands.”
Israel says Rafah is the last significant Hamas stronghold in Gaza, and Netanyahu said Monday that the offensive against the town was vital to ensuring the militants can’t rebuild their military capabilities.
But he faces strong American opposition. Miller said Monday the US has not seen a credible and implementable plan to protect Palestinian civilians. “We cannot support an operation in Rafah as it is currently envisioned,” he said.
The looming operation has raised global alarm. Aid agencies have warned that an offensive will bring a surge of more civilian deaths in an Israeli campaign that has already killed 34,000 people and devastated the territory. It could also wreck the humanitarian aid operation based out of Rafah that is keeping Palestinians across the Gaza Strip alive, they say.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday called the evacuation order “inhumane.”
“Gazans continue to be hit with bombs, disease, and even famine. And today, they have been told that they must relocate yet again,” he said. “It will only expose them to more danger and misery.”
Israeli leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts ordered Palestinians to evacuate eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, warning that an attack was imminent and anyone who stays “puts themselves and their family members in danger.”
The military told people to move to an Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi, a makeshift camp on the coast. It said Israel has expanded the size of the zone and that it included tents, food, water and field hospitals.
It wasn’t immediately clear, however, if that was already in place.
Around 450,000 displaced Palestinians already are sheltering in Muwasi. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it has been providing them with aid. But conditions are squalid, with few sanitation facilities in the largely rural area, forcing families to dig private latrines.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, condemned the “forced, unlawful” evacuation order to Muwasi.
“The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services,” Egeland said.
The evacuation order left Palestinians in Rafah wrestling with having to uproot their families once again for an unknown fate, exhausted after months living in sprawling tent camps or crammed into schools or other shelters in and around the city. Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early Monday killed 22 people, including children and two infants.
Mohammed Jindiyah said that at the beginning of the war, he tried to hold out in his home in northern Gaza under heavy bombardment before fleeing to Rafah.
He is complying with Israel’s evacuation order this time, but was unsure whether to move to Muwasi or elsewhere.
“We are 12 families, and we don’t know where to go. There is no safe area in Gaza,” he said.
Sahar Abu Nahel, who fled to Rafah with 20 family members, including her children and grandchildren, wiped tears from her cheeks, despairing at a new move.
“I have no money or anything. I am seriously tired, as are the children,” she said. “Maybe it’s more honorable for us to die. We are being humiliated.”
Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them children and women, according to Gaza health officials. The tally doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than 80 percent of the population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, and hundreds of thousands in the north are on the brink of famine, according to the UN
The war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted some 250 hostages. After exchanges during a November ceasefire, Hamas is believed to still hold about 100 Israelis as well the bodies of around 30 others.

 


Palestinian militants say they fired rockets from Gaza on Israel

Updated 07 May 2024
Follow

Palestinian militants say they fired rockets from Gaza on Israel

  • The Israeli army said sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip
  • Israel has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory

GAZA CITY: The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said its militants had launched rockets from Gaza toward southern Israel on Monday in response to Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory.
“We have targeted Sderot, Nir Am, and settlements in the Gaza envelope with rocket barrages,” the Al-Quds Brigades said in a statement, referring to a zone of southern Israel close to Gaza.
The Israeli army said sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip.
 

 


Erdogan opens former church to Muslim worshippers

Updated 07 May 2024
Follow

Erdogan opens former church to Muslim worshippers

  • Erdogan on Monday declared Kariye Mosque reopened for worship, remotely during a ceremony at the presidential palace in the capital, Ankara

ISTANBUL: Turkiye on Monday reopened a mosque converted from an ancient Orthodox church in Istanbul for Muslim worship, four years after the president ordered its transformation.
The Kariye Mosque was formerly a Byzantine church, then a mosque and then a museum.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2020, ordered the building to be reconverted into a Muslim place of worship.
His order came followed a similarly controversial ruling on the UNESCO-protected Hagia Sophia — a cathedral in Istanbul that was converted into a mosque and then a museum, before becoming a mosque again.
The changes were seen as part of Erdogan’s efforts to galvanize his more conservative and nationalist supporters.
But they have also added to tensions with prelates in both the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
Erdogan on Monday declared Kariye Mosque reopened for worship, remotely during a ceremony at the presidential palace in the capital, Ankara.
An AFP picture from the mosque showed one worshipper wave a Turkish flag before the congregation who performed their prayers on a brick-red color carpet on Monday afternoon.
Images also revealed that two mosaics carved into the walls of the ancient church on the right and left sides of the prayer room were covered with curtains.
Most of the mosaics and frescos however remained visible to visitors.
“I had the opportunity to visit the place before and I was initially a little afraid of the work that could have been carried out,” said Michel, a French tourist, who would not give his full name.
“But ultimately we must recognize that it’s well done, that the frescos are accessible to everybody,” the 31-year-old researcher said.
Greece’s foreign affairs ministry on Monday night blasted a “provocation,” claiming that the move “alters the character” of the former church and “harms this UNESCO world heritage site that belongs to humanity.”
Neighbouring Greece had already reacted angrily to the decision in 2020 to convert the building.
The Holy Savior in Chora was a Byzantine church decorated with 14th-century frescoes of the Last Judgment that are still treasured by Christians.
The church was converted into Kariye Mosque half a century after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.
It became the Kariye Museum after World War II, when Turkiye sought to create a more secular republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
A group of art historians from the United States helped restore the original church’s mosaics and they were put on public display in 1958.
Hagia Sophia — once the seat of Eastern Christianity — was also converted into a mosque by the Ottomans.
Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye after World War I, turned the UNESCO World Heritage site into a museum in a bid to promote religious neutrality.
Nearly 100 years later, Erdogan, whose ruling AKP party has Islamist roots, turned it back into a Muslim place of worship.
“It’s timeless, it’s something that for me is superior to Hagia Sophia,” Michel said of Kariye Mosque.
“It’s better preserved, less touristic and more intimate.”


Jordan’s King Abdullah presses Biden to avert Israel offensive in Rafah

Updated 07 May 2024
Follow

Jordan’s King Abdullah presses Biden to avert Israel offensive in Rafah

  • Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
  • The Biden administration and Israeli officials remain at odds over Israel’s planned military incursion in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where it told Palestinians to start evacuating some parts on Monday

WASHINGTON: Jordan’s King Abdullah told US President Joe Biden in a private meeting on Monday that an Israeli offensive in Rafah would lead to a “new massacre” of Palestinian civilians and urged the international community to take urgent action.
“The king warned of the repercussions of the Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, which could cause a regional spillover of the conflict,” a statement from the Jordan royal court said after Abdullah had lunch with Biden at the White House.
Israel carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday and told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the city where more than a million people uprooted by the seven-month war are crowded together.
On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out. Hamas also attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, which Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
In a phone call on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu, Biden pressed Netanyahu not to go ahead with a large-scale Israeli military offensive in Rafah. The US president has been vocal in his demand that Israel not undertake a ground offensive in Rafah without a plan to protect Palestinian civilians.
The Jordanian statement said Abdullah in his meeting with Biden “warned that the Israeli attack on Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians are internally displaced as a result of the war on Gaza, threatens to lead to a new massacre.”
“His Majesty stressed the importance of all efforts that seek an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” it said. “The king and the US president affirmed their commitment to working to reach a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, stressing the importance of facilitating the delivery of sustainable humanitarian aid to the Strip in light of the dire needs.”
The Biden administration and Israeli officials remain at odds over Israel’s planned military incursion in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where it told Palestinians to start evacuating some parts on Monday.
Biden last met King Abdullah at the White House in February and the two longtime allies discussed a daunting list of challenges, including the looming Israeli ground offensive in southern Gaza and suffering of Palestinian civilians. Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s actions and have been demanding a ceasefire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 77,000 wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

 


What’s in the three-phase ceasefire deal Hamas backs, but Israel does not?

Updated 07 May 2024
Follow

What’s in the three-phase ceasefire deal Hamas backs, but Israel does not?

  • Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry

CAIRO: Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Monday it had agreed to a three-phased deal for a ceasefire and hostages-for-prisoners swap, although an Israeli official said the deal was not acceptable to Israel because terms had been “softened.”
The United States, which alongside Qatar and Egypt has played a mediation role in the talks, said it was studying the Hamas response and would discuss it with Middle East allies.
Based on details announced so far by Hamas officials and an official briefed on the talks, the deal that the Palestinian group said it had agreed to included the following:

PHASE ONE
• 42-day ceasefire period
• Hamas releases 33 Israeli hostages in return for Israel releasing Palestinians from Israeli jails.
• Israel partially withdraws troops from Gaza and allows free movement of Palestinians from south to north Gaza.

PHASE TWO
• Another 42-day period that features an agreement to restore a “sustainable calm” to Gaza, language that an official briefed on the talks said Hamas and Israel had agreed in order to take discussion of a “permanent ceasefire” off the table.
• The complete withdrawal of most Israeli troops from Gaza.
• Hamas releases Israeli reservists and some soldiers in return for Israel releasing Palestinians from jail.

PHASE THREE
• The completion of exchanging bodies and starting the implementation of reconstruction according to the plan overseen by Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations.
• Ending the complete blockade on the Gaza Strip.