'There Will Be No More Forgiving'

Surrounded by lush orange groves and vegetable gardens that stretch from neighboring hills down to the shores of the Mediterranean, the town of Damur lies twelve miles south of Beirut along the coastal highway. Damur is in a mountainous region of Lebanon known as the Chouf. The area is home to two of Lebanon's best-known political leaders, Maronite Christian Camille Chamoun and Druze Kamal Jumblatt. Last week, in retaliation for a rightist Christian attack on a Palestinian refugee camp at Dbayeh, leftist and Druze militiamen, led by fedayeen officers, laid siege to Damur, an important road junction and rightist stronghold. For five days it was shelled by mortars and rockets. TIME Beirut Bureau Chief Karsten Prager visited the town after the shelling and house-to-house fighting ended. His report:

The corpse of a man, already charred and shriveled, was lying face down on the pavement, flames still licking at his back. A few feet away, a flock of tiny songbirds chirped in small wooden cages. "We will save the birds," said a young militiaman from the Mourabitoun [garrison] of the leftist Independent Nasserite Movement. Like the corpse, much of the town was burning; flames crackled inside the solidly built houses of what was once a well-to-do community of 28,000, mostly Christians. Smoke wafted over the debris-cluttered streets and rose in a solid sheet that was visible for miles around. A gas tank exploded with a dull thump; an automatic rifle opened fire in the distance.

Except for the militiamen, who were gleeful and voluble in victory, the town was almost empty. Its defenders had retreated southward to regroup. Almost all civilians had fled to nearby Saadiyat, Chamoun's seaside estate, which was also surrounded by leftist troops. Later, a small fleet of yachts and coastal steamers picked up the thousands of refugees and carried them to Juniyah, a large Christian stronghold north of the capital.

The handful of people remaining in Damur stood in a bedraggled group near a church--quiet, anxious, clinging to their few belongings, which they had wrapped in small rugs. The leftists' commander, Abu Musa--a polite, unshaven Fatah officer--charged that Lebanese army commandos had helped defend the town, even though the army is supposed to be neutral. He gave the civilians the choice of staying or leaving for Christian-held areas; they chose to leave. Except for medicine and bare necessities, they were not allowed to take anything with them. Militiamen loaded furniture, household goods, washing machines and stereo sets into a truck to be "held for safekeeping," as one of the Mourabitoun explained it.

Near another church, a hard-faced Palestinian officer pointed his leather swagger stick at a blood-spattered wall near an abandoned sandbagged bunker. "From now on," he said, "there will be no more forgiving. The rightists used to say that Lebanon would be a graveyard for the Palestinians. Now it's a graveyard for them."

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