Beirut – On the 14th day of a bloody war – yet another – Beirut struggled Tuesday to live up to its old reputation as a Middle Eastern haven for cosmopolitan life and intercommunal harmony.
As fighting raged in the south and refugees flooded northward, it was an act increasingly difficult to sustain, sleight of hand by an aging magician who is no longer sure of his tricks.
The latest round of fighting, matching Israel against Hezbollah, the radical Shiite Muslim movement, has already put cracks in a facade carefully reassembled since the last war ended in 1990.
The rebuilt traditional buildings of downtown Beirut, with their trendy bars, fashion shops and high-rolling banks, have turned off the lights and locked the doors.
Most of Beirut has taken to pulling down the shutters after a late lunch, frightened indoors by Israeli bombs that regularly blast Hezbollah neighborhoods on the southern edge of the city.
“We used to be open until 3 a.m., and in the summer sometimes until 5 a.m., but now there’s nobody,” said Maroun Khadrah, manager of Le Petit Cafe.
He spoke shortly before powerful explosions from four more bombs cracked across town, shaking streets and buildings. “We close at 7 p.m. now,” he said, gesturing toward a largely empty street. “Look around. Everything’s closed up.”
The proud new expressway connecting downtown Beirut with the new international airport has been largely abandoned because it runs through the southern suburbs where Hezbollah has its headquarters and most of its supporters. Bombs have reduced block after block there to rubble.
The new burst of war also has badly damaged the idea that Lebanon had recovered its national unity after 15 years of civil war.
Sunni Muslim relief workers in the south Lebanon war zone said they have been insulted and even assaulted by Shiite refugees outraged that the rest of Lebanon is not helping in the battle.
Some Lebanese warned of a danger to the reunified nation if the conflict drags on and the United States and Israel proceed with their plan to try to disarm the Hezbollah movement across the country.
“The Israeli plan … is in fact that we become divided, leading to the disappearance of the state of Lebanon,” Ghassan Tueni, the owner of an-Nahar newspaper and a widely respected Lebanese sage, wrote in a front-page editorial.
