Lebanese Hide From Shelling, Hope for Truce

Terrified Lebanese residents, crammed 40 to 50 in basements of shell-battered buildings, today entered the fourth week of a pitiless artillery showdown, pinning their only hopes on an Arab League truce plan.

As shelling resumed with fresh intensity in the afternoon, political sources said an Arab League committee, trying to arrange a cease-fire, planned to ask army commander Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun to end a sea blockade of ports that sparked the violence.

The committee would also ask Syria’s Muslim and leftist allies to lift their siege of the Christian enclave, controlled by Aoun’s men.

The sound of shelling echoed across the capital for the 22nd day of violence, which started after Aoun imposed the blockade. It has now engulfed one third of Lebanon in the worst artillery bombardments in 14 years of civil war in a confrontation that has dwarfed most earlier fighting.

After a night of savage bombardment when thousands of shells blasted more than 100 areas in the capital, the mountains and the Syrian-held east Bekaa valley, shelling eased briefly in the morning.

A few shells hit Christian areas in Beirut and Druze mountain enclaves to the southeast, but fighting later intensified, with some shells hitting Christian coastal areas north of Beirut and others slamming into Muslim West Beirut residential areas close to the green line battlefront dividing the capital.

Since March 14, at least 123 people have been killed and 473 wounded in the fighting, which is pitting Syrian gunners and their local Muslim allies against mainly Christian troops. Most of the casualties have been civilians.

“Just around my house in one small street there were mounds of debris, scores of burned cars and carpets of glass,” said a Christian East Beirut resident.

“People are living in shelters all day and night long, 40 or 50 people together,” another resident said.

Nearly 1,000 residents managed to flee the blitzed capital on Monday and today, taking a ferry to Cyprus from the port of Jounieh.