A wave of mounting despair swept across Lebanon through most of last week, as the conflict between left-wing Moslem and right-wing Christian factions exploded into yet another round of fighting. The strife that had intermittently rocked the country since April was spreading. The street battles were fiercer than ever, and the government seemed unable to halt them. Reflecting the grim mood was Radio Lebanon Announcer Sharif Akhawi, who said on the air: "Armed men are everywhere. All roads are closed. Blood maniacs are at large. We are losing Lebanon."
At week's end, however, there was at least a faint ray of hope. A new truce —arranged by President Hafez Assad of Syria, Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat and Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami—seemed to be making some headway. In parts of Beirut, Christians and Moslems tore down barricades and gun emplacements and were aided by army bulldozers. But elsewhere in the capital, the combatants continued exchanging gunfire. The week's senseless violence had taken 100 lives, raising the death toll since April to more than 2,500, and had devastated even more of Beirut, turning the capital's urbanscape into a scarred battlefield (see color).
Shaky Truce. The latest round of fighting in Beirut, fourth in the tragic sequence, rippled into other areas of Lebanon, principally Moslem Tripoli and the neighboring predominantly Christian town of Zgharta. The shooting began after a shaky and frequently violated two-week truce, during which it seemed for a time that the wobbly "rescue" government of Premier Karami might be able to contain the situation. With help from Syria, which does not want uncontrolled civil war on its doorstep, Karami had worked out a ceasefire between the heavily armed Christian and Moslem guerrillas. Karami hastily put together a "National Reconciliation Committee," whose 20 members represented most of Lebanon's religious and political factions.
New battles flared up even as the committee struggled for ways to end the current skirmishing and solve the religious and class differences that underlay the shooting. Bulldozers had hardly cleared away old rubble from previous fighting when debris came crashing down into the streets from new explosions. Random incidents, typical of the insanity that stalks Lebanon today, added to the intensity of the fighting. Two mortar rounds, apparently fired on aim less trajectories from undisclosed positions, hit a street in one of Beirut's Moslem quarters where harried housewives had queued up to buy bread; 24 were killed and 40 wounded. A rocket round elsewhere took the lives of five young children. Christians were appalled when they heard of a Moslem attack on a Christian village in the north of Lebanon; at least 15 people were massacred and 40 houses destroyed.
Early in the week, the weather seemed to cooperate in cooling things off a bit. The first rain of autumn, a torrential downpour, inundated streets, chasing snipers to shelter and for a short time, at least, swallowing the sound of the guns. "God has sent his rain to put out the fire," announced Radio Lebanon's Akhawi during one broadcast. "Pray that it will also wash our hearts." It did not, unfortunately.