BEIRUT — After years of taking on debt, forgiving their neighbors and hiding the scars of civil war, the people of Lebanon are watching with dread as their carefully rebuilt country splinters around them.
The last four days of Israeli airstrikes have shattered bridges, bloodied children and wasted roads. But they also mark another cycle of destruction for this seaside city, forcing some to wonder whether their country is cursed to live in perpetual violence and others to gird defiantly for another round of death and destruction.
"We feel raped," intoned Camille Younis, a burly man with bags under his eyes and reddish hair giving way to gray. "We never, never, never expected anything like this."
It was Saturday afternoon, the city smothered in sticky heat. The deep rumbles of explosions from the south shook the floor under Younis' feet. His car rental agency was the only shop on a strip of newly rebuilt downtown real estate that had bothered to open its doors under Israeli bombardment. The place was deserted.
Younis, 50, sat glumly in his office, a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka and an ashtray brimming with Gitanes butts sitting before him. He had invested all of his money in the business, he said. He borrowed money and invested that, too. When the fighting started, his livelihood began to melt away. Younis was disgusted with Israel and angry with Hezbollah.
"My God, we had a dream," he said, pointing out his window to the mosque and church that rose side by side across the street. "We had a dream of Lebanon, and I'm sorry it didn't work."
The torrent of airstrikes has cut down a national wish that has sometimes seemed on the verge of coming true: That the people of Lebanon, with its mountains and cedar forests and sparkling beaches, could have a peaceful, prosperous country.
"We are in shock. Nobody is ready to go through this war," said Nayla Mouawad, the minister of social affairs. Like most Lebanese, she has been scarred by her country's cycles of bloodshed.
Her husband, President Rene Mouawad, was assassinated just days after taking office in 1989. She was an outspoken critic of neighboring Syria's tampering in Lebanese affairs.
And now she is facing a fresh round of violence.
"People are depressed and more than depressed," she said. "They are desperate."
The history of this tiny seaside country is a tapestry of betrayal, assassination and patronage. Lebanon has been repeatedly divided. Animosity among its many religious sects and a shaky central government exposed it to foreign meddling.
