Middle East: Beirut Goes Up in Flames

With bombs and rockets, the Israelis tighten the noose on the P.L.O.

... Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down.

All across West Beirut, hour after hour, came the shattering detonations in crowded city streets, the crump, crump, crump of exploding bombs and shells, and then, after the brilliant flashes of red, the rising clouds of destruction.

The Israeli government insisted that it was not "the real thing"—the long-threatened Israeli invasion of the battered enclave of the capital by the sea. But to the 500,000 residents of West Beirut, as...