i felt sad i felt i felt horror but i felt amazing that's. when i started my projects for the holiday inn and so i started painting it from the outside from many viewpoints. and then i discovered that it's the parents of a very good friend of mine but i have to refer parents sammy and. actually not only live next to the holiday inn and have a fantastic view of it from their balcony and they're possibly one of the very few people in lebanon who had their wedding reception dinner in the holiday inn.

somehow. one hundred forty. years from. now and it's awareness and let's put some of you out about submarine again it's in my blood how to believe in the all knowledge then down in the theater and no more anomaly awfully i let us know by german as though it was not. orange catholic and it has it had. on the last second and again that with that good head of economic matters i was in so horne my love henrik to. read it some put my kind of eyes and had that head if you get in the swing of machine shop on with the machinery it was a bit of a diplomat think of. delaminate about hollywood and about russia. and the sun i looked at that idea but i

never got back to see if that i. can there that comes in then. yeah the national economic laws ian. lee nick and handle money so remember only they're in or why they were there. had a bit at the heart of men. only then. seeing the building from a distance you understand its context within the city and what it must have meant in the civil war. or use this very bright red which expresses this blood that's been spilled that violent enough. hate anger and every time i slash. the paint it's a way of going through that anger and that violence and honoring that and i also raise it as if that itself is the erosion of memory.

when the civil war started in april nine hundred seventy five the p.l.o. when the lebanese national movement for the maronite christian fundamentalist party . the violence was triggered by the so-called bus incident on the thirteenth of april when fighters from the phalange party opened fire on a bus carrying palestinians as it drove through their stronghold of anal romani. twenty six palestinians were killed and dozens wounded unleashing what became a living hell on the streets of beirut which spread rapidly throughout lebanon. there was street fighting and shelling. there were snipers and kidnappings and sectarian massacres across the religious divide. the christian phalangist militias were based in east beirut but gradually took

control of the main downtown streets in the west of the city the strategic port and the hotel district including the cent george the phoenicia the hilton and the holiday inn. on the twenty fourth of october one thousand nine hundred seventy five leftwing muslim militias and palestinian armed groups under the umbrella of the national movement launched a massive offensive to try and regain control of the hotel district which straddled east and west. with the battle of the hotel's one hundred seventy five nine hundred seventy six was was simply a battle for control of the strategic heights and who controlled the strategic heights kids essentially dictate terms so controlling these buildings in the hotel district the high rise buildings became extremely important for the militias.

which was central. i don't know what an old lady was over that and when i was hit by the sun george would release. the militia fighters started moving upwards and they started going on top of towers one e's bush on more and other one is only day and. a few days into the battle of the hotels the guests are completely abandon the entire district and evacuated to the neighboring mediterranean island of cyprus. soon after the upper floors of the holiday inn were set on fire by intensive

shelling. the fighting on the ground spread into what was called sector four where the phalangist had begun using the helton as a sniper base in the days leading up to the start of the civil war the beirut hilton had been preparing for its grand opening but that never took place. instead militias on both sides checked in the for any v.i.p. guests. this rare archive video shows the moment when left wing fighters seized the lobby of the hilton after the phalangist had withdrawn to their positions in the holiday inn. the important thing if you were walking around in beirut was not to be in the line of fire from the holiday inn. my name is tim for when i was the b.b.c.'s middle east correspondent in beirut in the seventy's eighty's ninety's i was in beirut during the so much of the lebanese

civil war i remember once trying to get down to the holiday inn to try and make some sort of effort. get into it to interview the phalangists and just as i was getting to the point in an area called i'm arise see where you would come right round the corner into the face of the. gunfire started and i scuttled back there was a dead body lying up the street. it was all rather sinister i fled back to the hotel i'm afraid it wasn't one of my braver days but did some people did get across to the holiday inn. on the twenty eighth of march nine hundred seventy six the so-called lebanese and palestinian joint forces launched their strongest attack yet against the frontline just in the hotel district. their aim was to control all key positions there but especially the highly strategic holiday and. control of

holiday inn and you control the region around so you took the holiday inn if you possibly could and that's why it was such a bloody battle. the holiday inn and it surrounds blames for three days as opposing militias vying for control. no one knew which way the fighting was going not even the lebanese and foreign journalists who reported on the national movements first incursion into the hotel lobby. fair to any year before. b. anyone has a half and i'm on for a moment short i want to be on. a

small group of christian phalangist to manage to hide inside the hotel killed a senior national movement command before making their way up to the top on the twenty fourth floor. by the. pollution that. can block me from. study. is out of fear about going i'm not smoked for. a while to say you had always thought well you don't like of the. the images of the sniper dropping twenty four floors to his death on the street and there's the militia celebrating for the cameras have become symbols of the form of the holiday and. soon

bottles that happened the room by room floor by floor stair by stair. the bottle of oddity incompleted the division of beirut through the green line into two sectors east and west beirut and these partition remained over the course of the two funnelling back. and it passed by. no one will ever know how many heroes died here in the holiday inn the battle lasted three days and three nights and there were no prisoners at the end. jonathan dimbleby reported on several overseas wars for british commercial broadcaster i.t.v. and was one of the first foreign journalists to enter the holiday inn and document the aftermath of the fighting there smoldering ruins of what had been this very popular resort hotel and you looked at it and thought. this is what we do to one

another. there's a hotel and now it's a shelf total show. light bulbs hanging down off of the wall war wires chairs smashed up a piano that was in there which somehow it was there survived the chandelier is all like this broken as a sort of looking bizarrely. like gargoyles staring down at what humanity had done to itself below the vision it will not be a surprising vision but it was surprising that that could happen in beirut. the green line of course in the civil war was

a place where flowers and trees grew abundant and seven so reference to that but it's also a way of envisioning some brighter future kind of sense of hope that might spring up in the ruins of the past. today around three decades on from the end of the civil war the complexity of lebannon sectarianism and the geopolitics of the region mean that the country and its people are still struggling to recover from its effects. the majority of the hotel district has been rebuilt. the enormous shell of the holiday inn still towers over downtown awaiting its fate. no more green line for it to look down on today. but the monument to fifteen years of

struggle continues to attract visitors historians artists and filmmakers all seeking to understand the events of the seventy's and eighty's. more than any other ravaged building surviving the conflict it surely deserves the title war hotel. a reporter's retreat in a brutal civil war if the commodore hadn't been the israeli invasion would not have been so well. the commodore had become a journalistic center you could be in a safe enclave and then you went out into civil war i started off leaving this of a suite at the commodore hutto the next room i was in was underground in a tiny prison so as a hostage beirut the commodore war hotels on al-jazeera fresh

perspectives new possibilities fearless journalism. debates and discussions global terror attacks trial by a fair i'm fatalities from those attacks fell by a quarter that's a good news story out his ear is award winning programs take you on a journey around the globe because we see. only on al-jazeera. singapore is being accused of expanding its coast and illegally dredged south and some of the islands off the coast of indonesia literally vanished it's a big business boggling one that will take this there in the sand is arthur if you see the beautiful beach behind it is something that's not so plentiful tragedy is that people are just not aware and ecological investigation into

a global emergency sand was on al-jazeera. i'm mr hall with the top stories on al-jazeera the turkish intelligence chief is briefed some u.s. senators on its investigation into the matter of saudi journalist jamal khashoggi the white house is under growing pressure to hold the saudi crown prince responsible for the killing a group of democratic and republican senators has met behind closed doors to discuss ways to punish riyadh she have written the reports from washington d.c. . turkish sources say her comfy dumby turkish intelligence chief was in washington for prescheduled meetings with his cia counterpart gina hospital on a range of issues including syria as cia director hospital has been leading the u.s. investigation into the crucial g murder after she briefed some senators earlier this

week they said they were certain that the killing could not have happened without saudi crown prince mohammed bin sons involvement there's not a smoking gun there's a smoking cell but only a few senators received that cia briefing turkish sources say feed agave those he met on capitol hill on thursday information regarding the evidence ankara has in the because shuggie murder as well as the information ankara has supplied to the administration in washington senators are considering three lines of action against saudi arabia not just as a result of the khashoggi killing but the humanitarian disaster that's been caused by saudi action in yemen the a's are sixty three the nays are thirty seven the motion is agreed to first a procedural vote is expected next week following a vote to move a resolution on invoking the war powers act to end u.s. participation in the yemen war to the senate floor last week if successful a debate will begin and a final vote held meanwhile senators have also proposed

a bill to suspend arms sales to saudi arabia and a resolution to personally hold the saudi crown prince responsible for the khashoggi murder some senators who voted to advance the war powers resolution last week now say they would prefer going down these legislative routes instead but while any action by the senate will be a symbolic but historic breach of the u.s. saudi relationship none of these measures are expected to reach the president's desk as the leadership of the house of representatives have shown no willingness to also vote on the measures but following november's democratic success there in the midterm elections that may soon change if i were the saudi government i would be very concerned now obviously no one wants to see the total destabilization of saudi arabia but the special relationship with the saudis and the arms sales and the us support really have been called into question the trumpeters station though says it remains firm in its support for the saudi government she ever turns the outers era washington. the u.n. envoy to yemen has called for both sides in the four year long war to end the

violence now he made the comments at the start of talks in sweden the warring sides have agreed to a prison a swath of. fighting continues on the ground in yemen at least seven who think fighters and one soldier from the saudi u.a.e. coalition have been killed and a province coalition forces are trying to push that he is from the hills to the south of the town of dams a u.s. sponsored draft draft resolution that would have condemned the palestinian group hamas has failed to pass in the united nations general assembly the measure didn't get the required two thirds majority u.s. president donald trump is expected to pick head the now it to be the u.s. is new in basta to the united nations she's currently the spokeswoman for the state department so replace nikki haley who resigned in october and will leave the post at the end of this month the nomination still needs an endorsement by the republican controlled senate the chief financial officer of chinese tech company

chua way is expected in court on friday for a bail hearing men longo was arrested in canada and faces extradition to the u.s. for suspicion of violating sanctions against iran canada's prime minister says his government was warned ahead of the arrest but insists there was no political involvement china is calling for her immediate release the last migrant rescue ship operating off the coast of libya is ending its mission doctors without borders says a smear campaign by european governments has forced the aquarius to stop saving asylum seekers in the mediterranean sea the boats lost its registration in september those are the headlines more news.