BEIRUT — She remembers the sounds of gunfire and people shouting in the street below. She remembers that the electricity suddenly went out in her apartment but that a strong light still shone through the peephole in her door.
She crept toward it and looked out but saw nothing. "Then I heard one word," the woman, now 80, recalls. " 'Hit!' I jumped back and my door exploded open. All the doors of the building flew open."
It was just after midnight on April 10, 1973, and Israeli commandos had stormed her apartment building in the elegant Snoubra district of the Lebanese capital.
Minutes later, three senior officials of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization were dead, shot in their homes in a bold undercover operation that shook the guerrilla movement and led to tensions between Lebanon and the PLO.
For Ehud Barak, the man who led the raid dressed as a woman, the operation still ranks as one of his commando unit's greatest successes.
Now Barak, whose army exploits made him the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, says he will follow the path to peace as Israel's next prime minister. Even as the man he defeated, Benjamin Netanyahu, sends warplanes to attack Beirut's civilian infrastructure in his final days in office, Barak has renewed previous commitments to revive Israel's deadlocked peace talks with the Palestinians and forge agreements, too, with Lebanon and its powerful neighbor, Syria.
But residents here still remember the night the Israelis came, 26 years ago, and assassinated the Palestinian guerrilla leaders who were living among them.
Against that backdrop, some people here and others across the Arab world wonder whether a man known for killing Arabs will be capable of making peace.
Still others, however, both in Beirut and throughout the region, appear to accept the widespread Israeli view that only a tough combatant can be trusted to make peace. They say they believe that Barak is committed to pursuing peace and predict that he will honor a campaign pledge to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon within a year.
Arafat Also Warrior Turned Peacemaker
Several also point out that the region has had other warrior leaders who became peacemakers, including Arafat.
"Twenty-six years ago, Barak was just an officer in the army," says Ibrahim abu Hjeili, 57, who owns a barbershop on the street and remembers arriving the morning after the raid to find blood on the pavement and a scene of chaos.
