Photo by: AFP

Nada, 49, stood aghast in the apartment which reeked of cordite, its walls blackened, windows shattered and furniture reduced to ashes after a wave of violence swept through Druze mountain villages southeast of Beirut. "We're still numb from the horror of what we went through" on Sunday, said Nada. She added that she had to hide under a stairwell for four hours as firefights raged outside her home. Sheikh Abdallah al-Khishn, a local official in the town of Shwayfat, told AFP : "I guess they got lost on their way to Tel Aviv but we will forgive them," he said. He was referring to the Shiite Hezbollah movement insisting that its mighty arsenal was intended for the resistance against Israel.

Nivine Naeem, 28, said a rocket blasted through her home as her terrified five-year-old daughter cowered under her bed. "We didn't know what to do. What could I tell my daughter?" about what was happening, she said. "Do you see Jews here? Is Hassan Nasrallah trying to free Shebaa Farms from here?" she asked, referring to a disputed area in southern Lebanon now occupied by Israel.

She spoke to AFP as she surveyed the destruction in the apartment above her own. This was where a relative, 65-year-old Hassib Naeem, lived. He was not wounded in the fighting. "How can we ever again believe their weapons are meant for our protection?" Nivine said.

Soon after the clashes began on Sunday, Jumblatt urged his supporters to end the fighting and allow the army to take over security in the area. "Civil peace and halting the destruction are paramount," Jumblatt told Lebanese television. Firas, a 28-year-old resident of Shwayfat said: "We only had our own personal weapons. They were shooting M-16s and rockets at us. All we had was guns. What could we do?"