Amid the distant thunder of exploding car bombs, the sharp cry of guns and the agony of conflict, the Adhan resonates across Lebanon. The muezzin's soulful voice, thick with emotion seem to rise like a soothing balm from every pock in the battered earth, calling Muslims to prayer. The Adhan is recited in Arabic and according to the Islamic scriptures; Muslims are to pray five times a day.

With terrorism tearing their lives apart Lebanese villagers cling to prayer. And each death, from stray bullets, malicious car bombs or warring Palestinians, challenges their faith. Still they continue to survive in a winter that is brutal as their hunger and an economy that has forced undue hardship and starvation upon them. Like food, warmth and peace are longed for commodities.

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Don Duncan, writes about Hanin Rafae, 60, who struggles to keep her five sons and six daughters warm. They sleep on the patio, huddled around a fire in their Bibneen home. Intermittent conflicts between the Lebanese military and militant Palestinians keep their lives in limbo.

Children's vacant stares, ravaged homes, growling stomachs, villages in rubble are common realities. History and lives are reduced to dust, stone and boulders. What future do parents foresee for their children when bullets whizz pass them daily and bombs explode in their wake? The answer is elusive.

Here faith and allegiance combat gun and religion. Those, not wielding the gun bow to Allah for strength and deliverance. And those who weigh their lives against the gun employ courage and wit to destroy the enemy. Lebanese villagers are trapped in the crossfire of terrorism, forced upon them by the Palestinians. Until the scourge is removed they do not envision a better future. It's not Jihad. It's a war of might and the right to live on their land without reprisal.

The last war which ended in September almost demolished the Nahr al-Bared, one of 12 Palestinian camps. The lull is temporary. Inflation jumped to 5.6 percent and the cost of living to between 60 and 70 percent. In addition to freezing, Rafea, like villagers Abdal Qader, Nael Abu Siamand and Mohamed Saleh al Hajj worries about looming starvation.

The unrest is neither a Lebanese nor Palestinian issue; it encompasses the entire Arab and Muslim nations and perhaps international peace keeping agencies. It dates back to the Arab-Israeli war in 1947 when nearly 100,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon to escape peril, making

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