The Beirut factory is now up and running, but only by a thread
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When Ali Ismael, co-owner of Tricot Starlet Co., saw the wreckage of his clothing factory in Beirut’s southern suburbs, bombed just five days before the 33-day war ended, the shock literally sent him to the hospital with high blood pressure. “Everything I worked for my entire life just went to waste,” he said. “I did not inherit anything from my parents — neither my partner nor I. It was our entire life’s work and it was hard looking at it burn in front of my eyes.” Little remained of the factory, located in a hard-hit area on Al Kassis Street next to what Ismael described as the “Hezbollah kitchen”. Initially, he considered this the final blow for the company; already, the textile industry was suffering in Lebanon, with cheaper competition from Asia and, contends Ismael, “mafias that can get in a whole container at the port for$15,000 without paying any
