THE LEBANESE capital yesterday held a day of mourning for the 102 Lebanese civilians massacred at Qana last week, writes Michael Jansen.
As the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr Rafiq al Hariri, and the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Nabih Berri, travelled to Damascus to discuss a ceasefire, citizens of Beirut and other cities lit banks of candles placed at well frequented public places to commemorate the slaughter.
The day of commemoration was all the more poignant because full details of the Qana disaster had emerged in the morning's Lebanese press. Reports contradicted Israeli claims that its gunners had fired five rounds along a radar traced trajectory at Hizbullah fighters who had, 15 minutes earlier, fired two Katyusha rockets and eight mortars at northern Israel.
The reports suggested the carnage at Qana was inevitable because Israel was following a policy of blanket shelling with 155 mm Howitzers of the areas from which Hizbullah rockets were being fired, rather than, as claimed, directing small salvoes with "pinpoint accuracy" at moving guerrilla targets.
Israel fired no less than 28 heavy artillery shells into the vicinity of the Fijian headquarters, five or six striking the compound directly while the majority devastated the entire area round it. This was confirmed to The Irish Times by the UN spokesman in southern Lebanon, Mr Timor Goksel, who also said that before the Qana incident Hizbullah had never fired Katyushas from the Fiji battalion area of control - presumably because it was too far from targets in northern Israel.
While mourning its fallen, Lebanon is returning to the war time situation in relation to electrical power. Everywhere in the capital are men on ladders reconnecting shops, offices and households to private generators silent these four months since the Electricite du Liban, with the able assistance of ESB International, restored power to the pre civil war level.
Consumers, impatiently wait their turns in long lines, pay reconnection fees, purchase new wire and switches and lose a morning or a day. Those who cannot afford private power do without.
Generators pollute the city with their hum and clack, their fumes and leaking fuel; pedestrians stumble over thick coils of wire lying in wait on sidewalks to snake round ankles.
The signature tunes of the various news bulletins and the funereal tones of announcers blare from transistors carrying non stop coverage from the front. Lebanon is back on a war footing, but the country is not cowed. Its citizens are not fleeing as they did during the civil war.
The only mass exodus at the airport is of round trip pilgrims in white gathering for flights to Saudi Arabia for the Haj. Like the Palestinians of the Intifada, the Lebanese have become steadfast in the face of continuing adversity.