"Who will compensate us? Nasrallah?" asked a woman neighbour, referring to the chief of the Shiite militant group which has been at war with Israel for three weeks.

Her home suffered the same fate when warplanes swooped in from the sea on July 20 and fired six missiles to destroy two bridges on the coastal highway.

This mixed Christian-Muslim village has a few thousand inhabitants, but it was almost deserted at the time, with residents having wisely fled to Christian areas to the north of Beirut.

The woman had recognised her wrecked home on television, now missing several walls that expose the family life that used to go on inside.

The mukhtar, or mayor, Maurice Abu Nasser, 50, said one person was killed and 10 others wounded when the bridges were holed and the nearby houses destroyed. The damage was widespread, with windows shattered up to 500 metres (yards) away.

"On the surface, what's happening is a war between Israel and Hezbollah, but everybody knows it's a war between Israel, and Iran and Syria. Lebanon is paying the price," said the mukhtar, himself with the face of Jesus dangling on a necklace.

"Eighty to ninety percent of Lebanese don't want this war," he stressed, as Shiite refugees from south Lebanon streamed through Naameh to join the highway north to Beirut, taking advantage of a temporary halt to Israeli air strikes.

"These people, our brothers, are innocents paying the price for someone else's war," said Abu Nasser, referring to Hezbollah's support from Tehran and Damascus, both sworn foes of the Jewish state.

"As Lebanese, who should we turn to if not God? The UN, (US President George W.) Bush won't help us. (French President Jacques) Chirac is crying out but nobody is listening to him," he said, as a group of onlookers laughed out loud.

Thousands of refugees, meanwhile, were packed in minibuses, trucks and taxis, some with black flags on the door handles in mourning for the more than 50 killed in an Israeli air strike in the south Lebanon village of Qana on Sunday, some of them flicking V for victory signs and vowing to return home soon.

Naameh residents said they also planned to make a quick exit the same day or Tuesday, before normal hostilities resume. They are used to the nearby underground bases of Palestinian militant groups being attacked, but this time the conflict is too close for comfort.

"We came back to see our homes today, like everyone else. We'll go back to Jounieh (north of Beirut) soon because we fear it will start again," said Charbel Yazbeck, 19, who lived in Switzerland for 10 years before returning with his family in 2002.

Bassam al-Naboulsi, 33, owns a mini-market which was damaged in the air raids that hit the Christian part of town. He lived in Lebanon throughout the 1975-1990 civil war, before his family emigrated to New York in 1993 for a decade.

"If they hit that gas station across the road next time, that would be the biggest disaster in town. That's what everyone's afraid of," he said.

The air in Naameh already smelled bad from the nearby Jiyeh power plant serving southern Lebanon that was hit shortly after the July 12 outbreak of the conflict after Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers.

The air strike set the fuel tanks on fire and spilled pollution into the eastern Mediterranean, not helping Naboulsi's second job of car rental agent that relies on now non-existent tourism.

"This was not the first time that a Christian area was hit. Hardly any part of Lebanon is being spared," he said, pointing to an air strike on the historic coastal resort of Byblos, north of the capital.

"But I'm not leaving Lebanon again -- even if the whole country is reduced to dust," pledged the dual US-Lebanese national.

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