LEBANON: Last Rights for a Mortally Wounded City

From the top of the unfinished 30-story Murr Tower, Beirut's tallest building, leftist Moslems fired a lethal .50-cal. Chinese machine gun at anything that moved in the center of the city. Some five blocks north, in the gilded Corniche area on the Mediterranean, right-wing Christian Phalangist forces occupied the Holiday Inn and other hotels and began firing from the luxury bedrooms in a desperate effort to hold ground. Answering rocket blasts tore apart the Inn's top two floors. Banks, shops and business offices were shuttered, few besides gunmen ventured onto the streets and about the only traffic along the once thronged boulevards consisted of armored cars and ambulances. After seven months of continual outbursts of violence across Lebanon, Beirut last week was a dying city.

Real Panic. Once sleek and salacious, the "Paris of the Middle East" is a wasteland. Since April, 75% of the national carnage has been in Beirut; at least 3,000 people have been killed, 6,000 wounded, in a city of 1,500,000. Those who managed to reach hospitals last week could rarely find an empty bed. They may have been better off on the floors, since continual sniper fire raked some wards. Water, food, medical supplies, gasoline and electricity were running low. Estimated property damage and revenue loss passed the $2 billion mark. Most international businesses and banks whose headquarters are in Beirut have now left to settle elsewhere. By the end of last week 4,000 of the 5,000 Americans living in the city had made their way to the airport in armed caravans and filled outgoing flights to anywhere. U.S. Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley ordered all families of American officials to leave. U.S. embassy Marines shifted to battle fatigues; stray small-arms fire ripped the building.

Stubbornly, Beirutis had continued to hope that somehow the madness would pass, that maybe the next ceasefire would not be shot down by the armed fanatics whose number seemed to be growing. Last week, reports TIME Correspondent William Marmon, "real panic gripped the city for the first time as the pattern of fighting changed abruptly and the remaining hopes were shattered. Previously, rival factions shot and shelled each other from fixed positions. The result was stalemate. Now leftist Moslem forces, spearheaded by a group called the Independent Nasserites, have launched an offensive to win a clear victory. Moving out of their base area in southwest Beirut, the Nasserites intend to cut through the city up to the sea, thereby flanking some Phalangist positions and driving other rightist forces into the eastern part of the city."

The battle was fought house by house and street by street. One car filled with Moslems managed to reach the Parliament building in Christian-controlled territory. "You do not represent the people. You do not represent anyone," they shouted over a loudspeaker, then opened fire, killing one of the bodyguards of Phalangist Leader Pierre Gemayel. When retreating Phalangists took up positions in the hotel district, the conflict took on an added symbolic intensity. "I'm going to sleep in the Holiday Inn tonight," pledged one strutting Moslem fighter as he prepared for an assault on the Christian outpost. By week's end the Phalangists still held what became known as the "hotel front."