Beirut, Now and Then

On Wednesday​ , 8 April, Israel expanded its kill zone beyond what had been known as the ‘safe’ areas north of Beirut’s suburban south. I talked to a doctor at the American University Hospital who told me his emergency room was treating four hundred patients wounded in the bombing. Four had died. I passed the hospital, where families outside were waiting for the medical staff’s reports. By the evening, the Health Ministry put the death toll at 182, already a day’s record for the round of fighting that began on 2 March, later raising the total to more than three hundred. Among the dead was a young man who worked in the Thai restaurant round the corner from my house. His family, like so many others, is in mourning. The last five weeks of Israel-Hizbullah warfare have produced more than five thousand Lebanese casualties. When I walked home from dinner…