As the Ma'alot schoolhouse massacre in Israel and the retaliatory air strikes in Lebanon shook the Middle East last week while Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was trying to negotiate peace, TIME'S bureaus deployed on both sides of hostile borders. In Israel, the Jerusalem bureau's David Halevy and Photographer David Rubinger raced to Ma'alot. For an eyewitness report at the climax of a day's excruciating vigil, Halevy moved into the school building with a wave of Israeli paratroopers. Says Halevy, who was wounded in the October war: "I have seen many terrible scenes as a soldier and as a journalist. But I have never seen anything as bad as Ma'alot." Bureau Chief William F. Marmon Jr., a former TIME Viet Nam War correspondent, spoke with Israeli officials, who recounted the events leading to the Ma'alot tragedy and discussed its impact on the Kissinger mission. Correspondent Marlin Levin, who has reported on four Middle East wars since 1947, weighed the public reaction and the continuing instability of Israel's government.

To the north, Beirut Bureau Chief Karsten Prager, also a former Viet Nam War correspondent, rose from a sickbed with a 102DEG fever to direct the bureau's work and write comprehensive files on the Palestinian liberation movement and the political repercussions of the week's violence. Photographer Eddie Adams headed to 'Ain el Hilweh, a refugee camp that had been hit by Israeli planes, where he was guarded closely by armed commandos. Correspondent William Stewart, a journalistic veteran of Viet Nam and India-Pakistan combat, also visited 'Ain el Hilweh with TIME'S Abu Said. They poked through the ruins and talked with bitter but resolute Palestinians.

One of the few men who saw both sides was TIME'S State Department correspondent John Mulliken, visiting the area with Kissinger for the fourth time in six months. On successive days the Syrians and the Israelis escorted Mulliken on inspections of the front. Then he rejoined the Kissinger party in time to report on the Secretary's further progress toward peace in the troubled Middle East.

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