The village overlooks a picturesque valley of forests. A good view of South Lebanon to Israel can be seen from anywhere in town. In peaceful times, Jezzine could be - was - a resort, where rich and poor could escape the heat of hot summer dusts in Beirut.

But as long as anyone could remember, there was quite a different view from Jezzine's treacherous cliffs. In the valleys below you could make out groups of men, different than the ones who slithered across Jezzine's dirty body. This was Hizbollah. For more than ten years they attacked Jezzine without success. But it was the defenders of the city that despaired. The failures of the attackers doubled the guerrillas' determination and made them stronger.

Since the end of the war, Jezzine was controlled by the South Lebanon Army, the last hold-outs of the Christian militias from the civil war. At least half were veterans of the Beirut street fighting, tough battles fought block-by-block against suicide bombers. They considered Jezzine a last stand. The other half of the SLA men just wanted out of the war. The hardcases would watch over them, because these men were unreliable soldiers who would go out for night watch and never come back. Cruelly, their families would be told they were killed so the SLA could save face.

The civilians in Jezzine didn't care about the strategic value of their town. Seventy-five thousand of the eighty thousand who once lived here left after the peace, which was never honored by the SLA. Ominous reminders of their ghosts were left behind in Jezzine's domiciles. The houses were empty, nothing of value left inside. Not even squatters or refugees from other areas would move to Jezzine.

With so few Christians to protect, the lie to the war was exposed: this was not about protection but territory. Everyone including Hizbollah would admit it, but not the SLA command. Jezzine was connected by land corridor to the Israeli-occupied Security Zone in South Lebanon. It was also connected to the Lebanese city of Sidon along a very traveled path. This was all it was worth, this beautiful land with its stone houses, its waterfalls outside of town and places of solitude now used as ammo dumps by Hizbollah. A hexagon on a map, and just that alone.

The commander of the SLA, Antoine Lahad, was often present in Jezzine. When he was out of town, the beaten detachment was led by his right-hand man, Emile Nasser. Nasser epitomized that part of the SLA who were fighting down to the last bullet. Two of his relatives were killed in an ambush by Hizbollah in August of 1997. A remote-control bomb planted roadside was Hizbollah's cunning tactic. Nasser had good information that the Lebanese government was behind this attack, though, with Hizbollah acting as hitmen. And so that same day Nasser began launching rockets into downtown Sidon from Jezzine's bluffs. He was completely psychotic (they say the same thing happened to Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, after his daughter committed suicide). Nasser was too popular among the hardcases to be replaced, but the press was so bad after his shelling of Sidon that all of his commands had to be approved by Lahad or the Israelis before execution.

TWO YEARS AFTER NASSER'S niece and nephew were ambushed I traveled on the same road. This was my sixth trip to Jezzine. From Sidon the road twists and cuts across a deserted field through Kfarfala, then soars upward like the mountain of Purgatory.

I was breaking an oath never to return to Jezzine. But I had good reasons. It was a momentous time. The Israelis had withdrawn from their security zone in Lebanon just days ago. The SLA was unraveling behind them, scenes of soldiers surrendering on all Beirut's front pages. The Lebanese President (a Christian himself) made a surprise visit to the town. The survivors of the "occupation" of Jezzine greeted him as a brother. After ten years of war more than the rest of the country, they would roll out the red carpet for the devil.

Emile Nasser had been replaced as commander of Jezzine a year before. The Israelis would suffer his insanity for his popularity, but they could not abide his ineffectiveness. His replacement was severely wounded in an assassination attempt. Nasser, it turns out, had struck a deal with Hizbollah, by which he surrendered much information about the SLA positions and strategies in exchange for a peaceful life of retirement.

Nasser was one of the lucky ones. Hizbollah did not come to Jezzine in force, but sent in only a few soldiers, mostly natives of the area. They were supposed to be police forces, but when my convoy pulled in they were celebrating with the sparse crowds of civilians. The whole scene was astonishing. Within a matter of hours, Jezzine had lost its purpose. The Israelis had withdrawn from the occupied strip along the border and Hizbollah had moved in. Jezzine, so long the target, was passed along the way to the open territory. The "stronghold" was just an afterthought now.

There were still many SLA soldiers in Jezzine, but in civilian clothes. They had not been arrested but still contemplated surrender. Others left to start a new life in Israel. Still others were married to civilians in Jezzine and had no place to go. The single brothel of Jezzine was crowded with SLA soldiers enjoying their final moments, prisoners to the city they long ago liberated, ruing the liberation by another.