As smoke continues to billow from an 11-storey building that was blasted by an Israeli airstrike into a heap of rubble burying four inhabitants, a woman looks over and yells: "Look what [George W.] Bush has done to my home."
Ash covers the ground for many blocks, leaving no mistake warplanes have revisited Beirut for the fourth straight night as part of attacks on Lebanon now into their fourth week.
"How can the capture of two soldiers justify complete destruction of the country?" asks Pierre Dacceche, a Lebanese MP. "This is the only Arab democracy in the region and we are being destroyed by Israel."
Dacceche wonders why there has been no real response from the West as the war enters its fourth week. "All the principles we learned in school are American principles and we had once believed in them," he mused, adding "but now I think it is difficult for the Lebanese people to continue to believe in Western justice."
According to the Lebanese government, over 600 people have lost their lives in what the people here refer to as the sixth war with Israel. The small nation now supports Hezbollah wholeheartedly.
When children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, the answer is near unanimous: "I want to be a Hezbollah fighter and fight against Israel."
Hakim Harb, a restaurant owner just north of downtown Beirut, wonders what will become of the youth. "Every night I listen to talk show hosts speak about the reasons for the war, but they don't have any and neither do we," Harb says.
"It is as if the future of our country is going to be built once again on war and violence ... We are a peaceful nation that doesn't like war, but Israel once again has brought it on us," he says.
Harb says he thinks that all the talk about democracy by the United States is nothing more that a façade to allow Israel to do whatever it wants. "We live in a democracy here in Lebanon, but if the US allows them [Israel] to attack us then what is the point in all this?"
Dacceche echoes Harb's assessment, referring to Lebanon as the "shining example of his [US President George W. Bush's] democracy crusade."
"We are a pro-American government, but where has that gotten us," asks Dacceche, adding, "America is allowing them to use illegal weapons to destroy our towns and society."
Human Rights Watch and Handicap International have said that Israel is using weapons that contravene humanitarian law - including cluster bombs and white phosphorous incendiary weapons in civilian areas, against the Geneva Conventions.
The MP says that Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon is like the Guernica bombing massacre by the Nazis that Pablo Picasso condemned. Except, he says, this time there is no Picasso around to paint the horror for the world to see.
"How can the world stand by and allow Israel to impose collective punishment on the Lebanese people for something the majority have no control over?" asked Dacceche. "They are asking the Lebanese military to do something - disarm and dismantle Hezbollah - while they are powerless to do so."
Harb sees not end in sight without the deployment of an international peacekeeping force. "It is hard to watch my country dying," he says. "It is as if all the work we have done to recover from the civil war over the past 16 years has disappeared."
As the United Nations debates the wording of a ceasefire resolution, it seems likely that many Lebanese will never again trust the words of the US government, which, in their eyes, is responsible for the continued bombings.
"Shame on them [the West] for turning the other way when we needed them most. And shame on us for believing once more that they would be up to the challenge," says Dacceche, adding, "Hezbollah attacked a purely military target and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers with the aim to secure the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
"It was only after Israel intentionally bombed civilian areas and caused the deaths of more than 80 innocent civilians that Hezbollah began to target civilians in northern Israel."
Lebanese vow never again to be 'burned' by US
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