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All summer, the conflict at Nahr al Bared between the Lebanese Army and the Islamic militants Fatah al Islam raged on. And while reminders of the ongoing fight showed up across the country on roadside banners of support for the Army and in the almost daily press updates and soldier body counts, in Beirut – where I was based – the trouble felt very remote – it was happening "up there," meaning the city of Tripoli 85km north.
The fighting was reaching its final stages when I left in early August and the Nahr al Bared conflict had lost its sense of urgency in the Lebanese public consciousness. People were beginning to worry about the presidential election scheduled for September. The question on everyone's lips was would the government, which has been in stalemate crisis for over a year, manage to agree on and elect a new president?
Returning this past weekend, the answer is "not yet." Elections have been postponed eight times and, just before I arrived, the specter of Nahr al Bared returned again to the public political sphere – in the assassinated body of General Francois al-Hajj.
He was being laid to rest on Friday when I arrived and Beirut was a ghost town – schools and offices shut in honor of the man, largely regarded as the Lebanese Army's second most important general.
Al-Hajj was the army general who masterminded the army's tricky assault of the Fatah al Islam militants at Nahr al Bared and both he and the army were lauded for their heroism. It was a triumph celebrated by all communities in Lebanon and the funeral, it is being said, brought the country together in mourning, albeit briefly.
Al-Hajj was expected to succeed army chief Michel Suleiman who is a potential consensus candidate to become president here. He was known to have good contact with both sides of the government and so his appointment as head of the army would have assured the continued neutrality of the institution. Many see the assassination as an attempt to offset this neutrality and mar the army with
Of course, up north, is work and the work of the army is done. Nahr al Bared lies mostly in ruins with just a fraction of its displaced refugees allowed back to inhabit the parts of the camp which were not shelled to rubble. Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at the quiet work happening there after the camp was itself the stuff of headlines across the world.