Fears are growing that a whole new generation may turn to militancy, writes Mary Fitzgerald in Beirut
For as long as he can remember, Hassan had dreamt of becoming a pilot when he grew up. In the stuffy Beirut classroom where he and his family have slept this past fortnight, he scavenges cardboard packaging from aid parcels to twist them into something resembling an aircraft. Most days he wakes to the drone of Israeli fighter aircraft overhead, returning to further pulverize the southern suburbs he used to call home.
Hassan (10) has changed his mind - he no longer wants to be a pilot. "I want to join the resistance," he declares, as his father Ali looks on proudly. "I want to join as soon as I can to fight for my people."
On the blackboard behind him, someone has scrawled in wobbly Arabic script: "Ila Haifa, wa ila ma ba'da Haifa, wa ila ma ba'da ba'da Haifa." An excerpt from Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's speech vowing open war on Israel, it translates: "To Haifa, and to beyond Haifa, and to beyond beyond Haifa", a reference to the Israeli city that has borne the brunt of Hizbullah's rocket attacks. Another hand has added: "We are all for our resistance. Victory is coming, God willing."
It is a familiar tableau in the hundreds of schools, mosques, underground car parks and community centres where Lebanon's half a million refugees sit and contemplate an uncertain future. Most are poor Shia Muslims from Beirut's southern suburbs and the ruined zone below the Litani river in southern Lebanon - areas considered Hizbullah's natural constituency.
While many would previously have supported Hizbullah politically and benefited from its network of social services, there are fears that the events of the past two weeks may turn a whole new generation - and not just Shias - to militancy.
Such concerns are not just confined to Lebanon. Analysts throughout the Arab world have warned that the Israeli bombardment of a country many Arabs admired for its fledgling democracy and post-war reconstruction could provoke wider instability in the region.
"I think a radicalisation has already begun as a result of the attack on Lebanon," says Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al Quds Centre for Political Studies in Amman, Jordan. "Look at the Arab regimes and governments - they have been isolated and criticised by their publics for not speaking up about what is happening.
"Arab public opinion is seething with anger. Even those secular Arabs who would have opposed Hizbullah before, now feel they have to support them against this aggression by Israel. Anti-American sentiment is rising in a very serious and dangerous way, as is opposition to any normalisation with Israel. It puts the entire democratic process in the region in jeopardy."
Bahia Hariri, an MP for the southern port of Sidon and sister of assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, hesitates before drawing a grim and worrying comparison.
"I am afraid," she admits. "If the Israelis take a long time with this I am afraid that the situation may turn into something like what is happening in Iraq right now. You are talking about the possible radicalisation of an entire generation of Lebanese youth. This is as much a danger as the war."
Even for those living in areas that have so far escaped Israel's bombardment, the reminders are everywhere. The media here has not held back in the way it has reported the consequences of every air strike.
Every day Lebanese newspapers devote almost half their pages to a litany of gruesome images. The mangled limbs, decapitated bodies and charred flesh of the dead are far more graphic than anything a Western newspaper would run. The same is true of the Arab satellite news channels that beam extensive footage of the death and destruction to millions across the Arab world. In Lebanon, the Hizbullah-linked television station Al Manar has increased the frequency of its propaganda videos showing Lebanese casualties juxtaposed with Hizbullah attacks on Israel, montages which seem to grow more frenzied as the crisis escalates.
In conversations, newspaper columns and television discussions the word "fitna" pops up constantly. A powerfully evocative Arabic word difficult to translate into English, its meaning can vary from upheaval and strife to the anarchy Muslims believe will precede Judgment Day.
In Lebanon there are fears that the rage, frustration and shock triggered by Israel's assault could turn inwards, tearing the delicate fabric of their post-civil war society. Always in the background is the memory of that war, during which Christians, Sunnis, Shias and Druze fought one another in various alliances, assisted by the occupying forces of Syria and Israel and further complicated by the involvement of different Palestinian factions.
Although the civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon's sectarian consensus has since been a delicate balancing act, threatened at different times by Syrian influence, squabbling politicians and Israeli army incursions.
The Lebanese government has urged national unity in the face of Israel's offensive but many wonder what will happen when the fighting stops. The uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Shia refugees has muddied the country's careful sectarian mapping, laying bare deep-rooted and often conflicting religious and political allegiances.
For now people in unaffected Sunni and Christian areas have rallied around to provide shelter and assistance to the refugees, but some fear that goodwill may run out as the state struggles with the prospect of rebuilding their devastated country. The cost of repairing the damage to its infrastructure alone will run to billions of dollars.
As the Israeli air strikes continue, there is whispered talk about the aftermath. Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former premier and leader of Lebanon's anti-Syria parliamentary majority, has dismissed speculation of another civil war.
"Although some of us think differently about what triggered this, the last thing we need is internal division," he said earlier this week.
What role Hassan, with his youthful dreams of becoming a Hizbullah fighter, and others like him will play in Lebanon's future remains to be seen.