Since 2011 Lebanon hosts more than a million displaced Syrians fleeing from a devastating civil war. This humanitarian crisis directly questions the political economy of solidarity in municipalities of the Bekaa valley welcoming displaced populations. In the Levant solidarity is customarily practiced as an act of “hospitality” from a “host” to a “guest”. But the Lebanese government also delegated the management of the emergency crisis to international humanitarian actors. Therefore, this article exposes how newcoming International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) destabilised the tradition of hospitality in villages of the Bekaa by hampering the latter’s legitimacy in preserving the pre-existing social order. This research then reveals how some Lebanese mayors successfully exploited INGOs’ mishandling of the humanitarian response to rebalance the political economy of solidarity in their favour. Encouraged by the state administration, many mayors emulated corrupt practices from the national elites to blackmail some compliant INGOs. In fear of being evicted, several INGOs ceded to the mayors demands and involuntarily unleashed an anarchic competition of resource predation. These mayors thus instrumentalised “hospitality” into a clientelist rent perpetuating their political dominance. Conclusively, this research emphasises the importance for international NGOs to “localise” emergency programming with experienced local NGOs to avoid fueling traditional structures of corruption. The research findings presented in this article are extracted from original mixed sources of data collected in 2018 and 2019 in municipalities of the Bekaa valley hosting displaced Syrians. It includes the testimonies of 78 elite-interviewees, among them Lebanese politicians, humanitarian actors, and religious leaders, who shape the political economy of solidarity in their community. These narratives are complemented by interviews with Lebanese/foreign experts of migration issues. In addition 146 Lebanese and displaced participants responded to two sets of surveys gathering data on their livelihoods in the governorates of Baalbek-Hermel and Bekaa.