At a time when Lebanon again faces the spectre of civil war, five Lebanese, representing Christian and Muslim communities on opposing sides in the last civil war, spent 10 days in France meeting political and community leaders to explain how they changed and why they are now working for reconciliation and peace.

‘The Lebanese people have been making peace with themselves,’ Muhieddine Chehab, Mayor of the business district of Beirut, told The Washington Post.

A SERIES OF signed commentaries has become a weekly feature on the international website of Initiatives of Change.

Being mistaken for a Muslim started Wadiaa Khoury, a Lebanese Christian, on a journey towards her fellow-countrypeople.

On the day that her husband was taken hostage in Beirut, Sis Levin went into action. Her 11-month struggle for his release plunged her into controversy. She talks to Mike Brown.

Every time the shelling began we had to take all the patients to the ground floor, lining their beds up along a dark corridor. On top of this, the wounded kept arriving in ambulances. Nearly all were young men under 30.