Writing at Land and People, Lebanese blogger Rami Zurayk chronicles events in Beirut as they unfold. His accounts are fascinating in their clarity.

Friday, May 8th, 8:26AM:

I live in Ras Beirut, between Hamra and Manara. We woke up this morning to the sound of machine gun shooting. I looked from the window and there was a few young armed civilians running in all directions. The kids were startled and we did what everybody does at times like these: seek the news. I sat at my computer and logged into the usual websites, then left the laptop to go to the tv, in the same room. The kids came in the room. Suddenly there was a small explosion, like a firecracker, with a cloud of dust and smoke. My 10 years old was the nearest to the source and we all looked towards him. There was a little hole in the glass door of the balcony, and another one in the wall a meter or so away from him. A bullet had come through the balcony, passed between the children and removed a small chunk of the wall, a meter or so away from my kid. We are now all huddled in a small room with no windows, waiting for the storm to pass. As I write, the fighting and shooting is still going on.

Friday, May 8th, 7:29PM:

I just came back from the funeral wake of my neighbor’s son. He was 16 and he and his friend were shot this morning in my street. His family owns a bakery and a cafe in my neighborhood. They are also very involved in the local mosque. He and a bunch of other kids always hang out between the bakery and the cafe. They are Hariri supporters by default, like many other Beirut Sunnis. At around 10:30, when the fighting intensity was beginning to decrease, they went out to have a look. The sniper caught them both.

Saturday, May 9th, 12:56PM:

I walked up towards Zarif from the intersection near the old Al-Nahar building. I passed Zarif, and then got to Aisha Bakkar. This is an old, middle class, traditionally Sunni neighborhood, one of the oldest in the city. Most shops were open and trading. There were some signs of fighting, mostly bullet riddled cars. Further down, in Zaydaniyyed is where I started to see more damage: a couple of burnt cars, and a lot of bullet holes in walls and shop windows. At the intersection with Mar Elias street, a couple of unarmed men clad in Amal flags superman-style were closing the road with the (multi-purpose) rubbish disposal containers. I asked one of them why he was closing the road and he said, slightly startled, that there were skirmishes in Zarif…