Callie Lefevre, I am one of the many American students evacuated from Lebanon in the last week. I’ve been asked to write about the experience, which I do gladly but with the significant caveat that the reader understands that my experience was nowhere near as tragic and intense as the experience of the average Lebanese in Beirut at this time. For me, even before war broke out, my stay in Lebanon had a sense of unreality–of being so remote from my usual experience that I imagined myself more a character in a fiction than Callie Lefevre in reality. In its opening chapters, it was a wonderful, romantic story, slightly more exciting than the usual study abroad story because of the greater potential for discovery and adventure in the Middle East. But even when the story turned somewhat frightening and sad, it was still a story, more or less. I always held within me the comforting knowledge that my home stood waiting for me, on a little undisturbed cobblestone street in Philadelphia, if only, like Dorothy, I could get back to it. Beirut is not my permanent home, and its concrete and glass high-rises that have become piles of grey rubble don’t house the memories of my childhood or of aunts and uncles opening their doors to holiday feasts. To see a pile of grey rubble and know that it was your home, to see the body of a seven year old girl in little blue pajamas and know that it was your younger sister (who yesterday smuggled a baby chick into the car so it would be safe from the bombs) is real experience on a very different plane than the one I occupied

DAY 14 – BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah vowed on Wednesday not to accept any "humiliating" conditions for a truce with Israel, as the Israeli killing of four U.N. observers piled pressure on an international conference in Rome to end the 15-day conflict.United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded an Israeli investigation into the "apparently deliberate targeting" of a U.N. post in southern Lebanon where an Israeli air strike killed the four U.N. military observers on Tuesday.Lebanon and its Arab allies will plead at the Rome conference on Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hizbollah guerrillas, but the United States will insist a lasting solution needs to be agreed first.

Israel, with apparent U.S. approval, has said it would press on with its campaign against the guerrillas. It also said it planned to set up a "security strip" in Lebanon until international forces deploy.Arab leaders and Annan want the Rome meeting, due to start at 0800 GMT, to call a quick halt to the war, which has killed 418 people in Lebanon and 42 Israelis since July 12. But U.S. Secretary Condoleeza Rice, who arrived in Italy late on Tuesday after visiting Beirut and Jerusalem, says she prefers to get conditions right for "a durable solution."Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the conflict with Israel had entered a new phase and that Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon would not stop Hizbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.

DAY 13, JERUSALEM, July 25 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday for talks on the war in Lebanon with little immediate prospect of a ceasefire with Hizbollah guerrillas. On a stopover in Beirut, battered by two weeks of Israeli bombing, Rice put forward truce proposals similar to Israel’s own demand for Hizbollah to pull back from the border to allow an international force to deploy, Lebanese politicians said.

"Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions," Rice told reporters in Jerusalem before dinner with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Despite the diplomacy, Israeli forces battled Hizbollah in southern Lebanon and planes kept up daily air raids. At least 378 people in Lebanon and 41 Israelis have died in the conflict, ignited by Hizbollah’s capture of two soldiers on July 12.

While saying she has no plan for Middle East shuttle diplomacy, Rice’s schedule this week resembles just that. She headed to Jerusalem after a surprise visit to Beirut and will also visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Among issues on the table are an international force for south Lebanon and getting Hizbollah to move back from the border as well as return the soldiers it seized in a cross-border raid.

TIME, The journey to Tyre in South Lebanon from Beirut, normally a one hour drive, has become a white-knuckle tear through twisty mountain roads and a bombed-out coastal highway that takes five hours.

We left for Tyre this morning after loading up on food and water for several days. Other correspondents have told us the situation is grim there, and that we need to bring our own supplies. We also considered bringing our own fuel, because the Israelis have reportedly bombed most gas stations in the area, so a black market for fuel has developed. Five gallons of gas now cost $50