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The Christians fought their way out of the hotel district; few surrendered, knowing that at this stage of the war neither side was taking many prisoners. The retreating troops fell back into Beirut's port district, a warren of narrow streets and alleys, and thus a far more difficult battleground than the hotel sector. The other major Christian stronghold remained the Ashrafieh quarter, not far from Martyrs' Square and the old commercial district of Beirut. Between Ashrafieh and the Moslem lines, cars were routinely stopped and searched by either side and travelers switched between Moslem and Christian taxicabs. Lebanese dubbed the crossing "the Mandelbaum Gate"—referring to the post that separated East and West Jerusalem when the city was split between Jordanian and Israeli rule.
Surrounding the Mandelbaum Gate, reported TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn last week, is a no man's land of 200 yds. in which not even cats or dogs dare to walk. On either side of the checkpoints are sandbagged bunkers and fortified houses. Their windows have been cemented up, except for small slots for weapons. Oil drums are set out to mark the perimeters of either side. Before the latest cease-fire took effect, the pop-pop-pop of gunfire erupted steadily from both sides.
One reason for the increase in casualties was that both sides were now using heavy artillery in a war that had previously been limited to automatic rifles, machine guns, rockets and mortars. Despite the chaos in Beirut, most of the city's telephone system was still working. Gunners took advantage of that fact to check on their accuracy. After firing off a round, artillerymen would dial a number known to be in the target area and ask where the shell had landed.
To drive the Christians out of their strongholds, the Moslems last week also imposed a tight cordon sanitaire around Christian areas. All cars were stopped and fuel and food confiscated. Even a Maronite nun, braving the shellfire to shop for her convent, had her groceries taken away at the Mandelbaum Gate. As it was, food prices had been soaring for weeks. Bananas cost three times as much in the Christian quarters of the city as in Moslem stores.
Inevitably, some of the combatants as well as armed civilians stopped fighting long enough to loot houses and shops in the battle areas. Troop commanders prevented them whenever they could; one officer of the Independent Nasserite militia, which was fighting alongside Jumblatt's men, caught four looters ripping off a shop and beat them up singlehanded. "Other people are fighting and dying," he screamed, fists swinging, "and these bastards are stealing!"
Some fighters shook down neutrals for financial "contributions." Near the Mandelbaum Gate, TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn and TIME'S Abu Said Abu Rish were stopped by four young men in ragged civvies but brandishing submachine