Road Through a Landscape of Death

A woman weeps over a coffin in Tyre before the mass burial there of 82 Lebanese bombing victims. (By Marco Di Lauro -- Getty Images)

In the most unsettled times, a longing for the ordinary sometimes seems most powerful. Young women washed dishes, turning water off and on to conserve it. One swept the floor as families stacked their mattresses. Diab, with her family of seven, said most of the time was spent in prayer and in conversations about the war "and the beautiful days before it."

The talk offered a window on the mood of the besieged in southern Lebanon. There is anger at the sense of abandonment -- by their government, by the United Nations and by other Arab states. There is deep hostility toward the United States and Israel, what one resident called "two faces of the same coin." There is a desperate fear that, out of pride, people express only softly. There is desire for routine, to maintain dignity. And there is talk of never departing, a resonant theme in a land Israel occupied for 18 years.

"We're not going to leave from here -- us, our children, our women, our daughters. Everyone is going to stay," said Hussein Skaiki, a 41-year-old driver. "Let Israel attack us." He pointed to Mohammed Ghassan, "around 70," his legs crippled by diabetes. "The roots of the village are planted in the old people," he said. "If they left, it would be a sin. Their roots hold the ground together."

Lebanon's wars have often held unintended consequences: Israel's invasion in 1978 helped create the southern suburbs of Beirut that are being bombed today; its 1982 invasion forged the climate for Hezbollah's creation. And the Israeli occupation that ended in 2000 helped incubate the myths and mystique that Hezbollah draws on today.

Ahmed Yaacoub speculated about what this war might create. "It will leave a scar the young are going to bear for 50 years," the 52-year-old teacher said, thumbing black prayer beads. "It's this generation's first experience with death, destruction and bombing. They're creating a frame of mind that will last a lifetime."

Diab and her family left her home at 2 p.m. on the war's first day, after a bomb landed 50 yards away. They brought nothing with them, and she said they were too afraid to return. As the idle hours passed, she said she was angry at almost everything around her.

"Who's talking about our suffering?" she asked.

Her friend, 28-year-old Aqeel Zalzali, interrupted her.

"We have a government that doesn't respect us," he said. "Why isn't it supporting the resistance?"

The road from Deir Qanun passes a crater. Perched at its edge is an abandoned car flying a white flag. On one stretch, bombs have buckled the road every 100 yards or so. One of them struck a little past a sign for the International English School. In Abassiya, another patch of homes is now rubble, a black car overturned on top. Dust from the blast coated every building as if a sandstorm had passed.

At the edge of the village, 41-year-old Salim Diab sat in a white plastic chair, gazing across a valley at rising plumes of smoke.

"I'm just watching," he said casually, as his son played in the shade of a eucalyptus tree.