As the 22-member Arab League prepared to send in a team within days to end the deteriorating crisis, armed clashes erupted in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, in which one man was killed by a stray bullet and four others were wounded.
Security sources said the fighting erupted in the highly-populated Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods in the predominantly-Sunni city, a day after army troops deployed in the area had to pull back to avoid engaging in the clashes.
The violence in Tripoli, in which one woman was killed in weekend clashes, came after intense battles raged Sunday in the Druze mountains southeast of Beirut, where the opposition-backed militias seized the strongholds of pro-government Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party.
Some reports indicated that 36 people, including 14 Hezbollah gunmen, were killed on Sunday alone in the Druze mountains.
Security sources told AFP news agency that at least 60 people have been killed in six days of battles that began in Beirut's western districts on Wednesday after the pro-Western government decided that Hezbollah's telecommunications network was illegal and dismissed the head of Beirut's airport security for his proximity to Hezbollah.
The Shiite Hezbollah organization, backed by Iran and Syria, unleashed its gunmen and its allies in the likewise Shiite Amal movement in the streets, blocking off the roads leading to the airport and storming offices belonging to the pro-Western ruling March 14 coalition, after which they handed them over to the army.
Hezbollah saw the cabinet decisions as a "declaration of war" against it and its anti-Israeli weapons, demanding the government retract its latest decisions and publicly apologize.
While the government's attempt to end the violence by authorizing the army to annul the cabinet decrees has led to the opposition militia withdrawal from the capital, it has not prevented the clashes from spreading across the country.
What started with political fighting took a turn toward Shiite-Sunni and Shiite-Druze confrontations, bringing the country to the edge of an all-out sectarian civil war.
West Beirut was trying to return to normality on Monday, amid tight army and security presence. Some shops and businesses opened their doors, but schools and many other institutions remained closed for a sixth day after what many of the area's mostly Sunni residents feared was a "Shiite invasion" of their city.
While the Christians – themselves divided between pro- and anti-Western camps – have remained outside the ongoing violence, former President Amin Gemayel of the pro-government Christian Phalangist Party insisted Monday that the ruling majority will not engage in dialogue with Hezbollah without a pledge that it will stop using its weapons inside the country.
Hezbollah has for years vowed its weapons would only be used for resistance against Israel and would never point them toward internal disputes.
The events since Wednesday, however, have sharply reduced the group's credibility as a purely anti-Israeli resistance organization and apparently given more reason for parties seeking to disarm it, according to independent analysts.
"They cannot come to the negotiating table with their artillery," Gemayel said, describing Hezbollah's power gains as an "illusionary victory."
Hezbollah and its ally, House speaker Nabil Berri, who heads Amal, have called for dialogue with their rivals to resolve the crisis, the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
The opposition welcomed an Arab League plan to dispatch a committee to visit Beirut this week to mediate a solution, which the Arabs hope would end the fighting, resume dialogue and elect army chief, Gen. Michel Suleiman, president. The country has been without a head of state since November.
An emergency Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo Sunday formed a committee headed by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa for the task.
Local Lebanese reports said that Moussa on Monday telephoned Berri to inform him that he was arriving via Beirut airport on Wednesday, which analysts said means that the opposition would open, for the Arab delegation only, the airport road its militias are barricading.
The committee excludes Saudi Arabia and Egypt, strong backers of the pro-Western government, in an apparent bid to pull a compromise from the opposition, which sees itself as confronting the U.S.-Israeli plans for the country and the region.
The country's politicians say that resolving the crisis depends on the U.S.-Iranian polarization, arguing that the regional and international disputes were playing themselves out in Lebanon.
While intensive consultations were being held in Beirut on Monday, including a meeting between the U.S. charge d'affaires and House speaker Berri, reports that the USS Cole destroyer was taking up a position off the Lebanese shores could further exacerbate and expand the confrontational drama unfolding in Lebanon.