Hot Zone Flashback: A Firelight Conversation in Martyr's Square

War is raging in Lebanon and Israel, and Kevin Sites is en route to the region to cover the crisis. Keep checking the Hot Zone for fresh coverage. Meanwhile, we feature previous coverage highlighting the lives of people caught in the crossfire.

As Kevin Sites heads to the Middle East to cover the conflict raging between

Israel and Hezbollah, the Hot Zone is featuring previous coverage of the region.

Hezbollah's cross-border raid into northern Israel last week, in which they killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two, sparked a fierce Israeli response, with Israel bombing targets throughout Lebanon and Hezbollah continuing to shell towns in northern Israel. Thousands of people on both sides of the border have been forced to flee their homes.

In December of 2005, Kevin Sites reported from Lebanon, a country enjoying a period of rebuilding and growth after the end of their 15-year civil war.

Though the civil war ended in 2000, Lebanon wasn't necessarily peaceful - a string of political assassinations had the country's tempers flaring. However, all-out war was becoming a memory as the Lebanese people began hoping for a future of their own making, free of large-scale international strife being fought in their homeland.

Only six months later, Lebanon has found itself once again in the throes of war.

In the following story, filed in December 2005, Kevin Sites talks to some Lebanese university students, hopeful for a peaceful future, but wary of trouble to come.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - At Martyr's Square, an area filled with ancient Roman and Phoenician ruins — and a bloody no man's land between the Christian and Muslim militias during Lebanon's 15-year civil war — I sat down with eight Lebanese college students who are protesting the wave of violent killings of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists here (only their first names are used to protect them from retaliation). I asked them what they wanted to achieve and what they saw for the future of Lebanon.

You can read the transcript below or watch the video. (I handed my camera over to my taxi driver, Henri, so I could participate in the discussion without being behind the lens. You just may think Henri shoots as well or better than me.)

KEVIN SITES: If you could have your vision of Lebanon for the future become a reality, what is it for you? What is the future of Lebanon? Where do you see yourself as a nation and where do you see yourself as a player in the Middle East and in the larger geopolitical spectrum?

AHMAD: A lighthouse of the Middle East.

KS: The lighthouse of the Middle East. A flagship for democracy?

AHMAD: Democracy, tourism, education, everything.

KS: How far away is that for you? How far away do you think that is for you? Is it next year? Is it five years?

AHMAD: It's sometime. Tomorrow. Yes, sometime.

KS: Ten or 20 years? You all think the same thing? Ten or 20 years you'll be married, with children and jobs. Will you still care about the same things? Will you still have the passion? How can you say that?

MAHMOOD: [Slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik] Hariri. We have his death in our hearts. He said we will always be united. He said this and we will always stay united with each other. Muslim and Christian.

KS: So you take those words and you honor them?

MAHMOOD: Yes.

NAHED: All of us are Hariri's children.

KS: You are his children.

NAHED: Yes.

KS: Is there a danger in putting too much emphasis on one man, and saying this is the savior of Lebanon and not into the institution itself? Or is it the symbols he represents?

STUDENTS: Symbols, symbols. Yes.

MAHMOOD: The symbols are what united the country. Yes, he cared for Lebanon.

AHMAD: They didn't kill Hariri for what was Hariri was. They killed him because of the symbols of what he represented in Lebanon and worldwide.

KS: You feel the same way with [slain anti-Syrian politician and journalist Gibran] Tueni.

STUDENTS: Yes. Sure, yes.

KS: And some of the other people who have been killed? Do you fear that these assassinations will continue — that everyone who speaks out against

Syria, the occupation of Lebanon...

AHMAD: The regime is cracking, just cracking and falling apart. That's the way it shows. They are trying to kill the media members and...

KS: And the people who are speaking out the most.

AHMAD: Yeah.

KS: Do you fear violence against yourselves?

AHMAD: No.

KS: You are coming here on a nightly basis. What's to say someone doesn't put a bomb there?

MOHAMMED: We don't care. We want, we want to be free.

KS: So you are willing to sacrifice?

REEM: We want to show that there isn't anything to scare us. What they did makes us stronger. We are not going to regret...

AHMAD: When you see your prime minister burning down, how would you feel?

REEM: We say with our opinions, we will never change — only stronger, until they will think that.

KS: Is this generational? You are all very young here. Do your parents agree with what your position is? Does it cross generational boundaries?

STUDENTS: Yes.

KS: So it crosses generational boundaries.

REEM: I want to say something. Because they suffered from the war more than us — for that they are with us with their opinion. I didn't suffer from anything in the war, but from what they told us we don't want it to come back.

--Transcribed by Hot Zone associate producer Erin Green.

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