Lebanon grapples with hatred unleashed by violence

DEIR QOUBIL, Lebanon (Reuters) - This month's spasm of civil war in Lebanon has inflicted wounds that will be hard to heal, even if Qatari mediators prod rival Lebanese leaders into patching up a deal to defuse the immediate crisis.

Hezbollah's violent reply to a government challenge to its private telephone network and its grip on Beirut airport ignited Sunni-Shi'ite enmity, threatening Iraq-style sectarian mayhem.

Battles in Beirut, much of which was overrun by the Shi'ite group and its pro-Syrian allies, spread to the northern city of Tripoli and Druze hills east of Beirut, with reported atrocities on both sides reviving memories of the 1975-90 civil war.

The conflict deepened rifts over whether Lebanon's destiny lies with the West and its Sunni Arab allies or a Syrian-Iranian combine sworn to defeat U.S.-Israeli plans for the region.

It also reduced many ordinary Lebanese to despair.

"This is my work, a mosaic painting, the only one saved," lamented Najwa Farhat, an artist picking at the charred wreckage of her flat in Deir Qoubil, a village overlooking the airport.

"The building will be repaired, but my loss cannot be replaced," said the 67-year-old Druze, contemplating a blackened living room once full of paintings and personal treasures.

Her workshop in an adjacent room was reduced to ashes after a rocket blasted through the wall of the fourth-floor apartment.

"Hezbollah promised us they will fight Israel, not Lebanese people. Because they are religious people, we trusted them," she recalled. "I don't know what happened with them."

Farhat and her family were not in the building during the bombardment that smashed their home, leaving them bewildered -- but still more fortunate than the families of at least 81 people killed during six days of fighting across Lebanon.

SUNNIS FUMING

In Beirut, Sunnis are fuming at the seizure by Hezbollah-led forces of Sunni-populated quarters. Gunmen loyal to their leader Saad al-Hariri put up only token resistance and the army moved into the streets only after Hezbollah had triumphed.

"The army didn't protect us, we protected ourselves," said a 31-year-old with bulky biceps who gave his name as Abu Mustafa.

He said he and his friends, partisans of Hariri's Future movement, had fought with pistols and assault rifles to protect their Tariq al-Jdideh district, but were hopelessly outgunned.

"We didn't have enough weapons to face Hezbollah for a long time. We were not on a war footing," said Abu Omar, 21, wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words "no excess".

The Tariq al-Jdideh vigilantes poured out tales of excesses that they said Hezbollah had meted out in beatings and killings, pulling out a mobile telephone recording of ugly scenes.

Human Rights Watch reported cruelty on both sides, citing photos of two Hezbollah members said to have been executed by Druze fighters, and videos posted on youtube.com of wounded men being beaten by pro-government gunmen in northern Lebanon.

"Accounts of abuses by the gunmen are spreading like wildfire and raising tensions," said Joe Stork, the group's deputy Middle East director, in a statement on Sunday.

"Unless the state acts quickly to hold the perpetrators accountable, there are likely to be further reprisals."

FEELINGS RUN HIGH

The Sunni neighborhood toughs in Tariq al-Jdideh disparaged Shi'ites as an "abscess" and Hezbollah as terrorists working for Iran and Syria, saying they wished for their defeat by Israel.

"We are ready to sign peace with Israel today," said Abu Mustafa. "We don't want to fight. We like women and drink."

Feelings are running just as high among Hezbollah supporters who view the Hariri-backed government as treacherously complicit with a U.S.-Israeli drive to disarm the "resistance".

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to "cut off the hand" of anyone who touches the weapons of the men who fought off Israel's 2006 assault, launched after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, and who battled Israeli occupiers in south Lebanon from 1982 until they left in 2000.

In Deir Qoubil, the Farhat family is hoping Lebanon can one day be insulated from broader Middle Eastern conflicts.

"We feel threatened, we feel we have nothing to do with Palestine, Iran or Syria," said Shawki Farhat, 71, a retired businessman. "We are entitled to live as a dignified, sovereign people and that's all we want. Is that too much to ask?"

Najwa Farhat, his sister-in-law, paused at a shelf where she had made a shrine in memory of a long-deceased son.

"It's burned, with his flowers," she wept, picking up the smoky stalks and tossing them aside. "It's too hard -- not losing things, but losing things that mean a lot to you."