HUNCHED over their computer screens, the brokers in Beirut’s reopened stock exchange glance up from trading shares every few minutes to scan the skies for Israeli jets returning to punish the Lebanese capital after a six-day lull.

The surprise resumption of share dealing this week was intended as a symbol that it was business as usual, though most in this refurbished office block on the edge of the city’s showcase development in Martyrs’ Square admit to being scared.

The nervous mood was not helped by a flurry of text messages that circulated yesterday with rumours that the Israelis were about to switch from bombing the infamous southern suburbs to concentrate on the financial heart of Beirut.

Desks emptied and by early afternoon banks and businesses were deserted again.

As he climbed into his BMW to head for the relative safety of the hills of east Beirut, Khaled Moureh, 26, said: “It is hard to concentrate on numbers when you think a bomb might drop on your head. It is surreal that we are trading with London and New York like normal when outside our city is being picked apart.”

Fadi Khalaf, the chairman of the Beirut Stock Exchange, said that there were $2.2 million (£1.2 million) of transactions yesterday, when he would expect $4 million.

To prevent any panic on the market the exchange imposed a series of measures including reducing fluctuations in prices to only 5 per cent. Yesterday share prices were up in banks, construction companies and Solidere, the giant real estate firm once run by Rafik Hariri, the murdered Prime Minister, that was largely responsible for rebuilding Beirut.

Dealing in telecommunications firms dipped but Dr Khalaf said: “The money will come back to Lebanon the minute the fighting stops.”

Ministers do their best to sound optimistic, but privately accept that Lebanon cannot take much more of this systematic destruction.

What is remarkable is that after 23 days of a conflict that has inflicted $2 billion damage, the Lebanese pound has remained extremely stable against the dollar. The exchange rate is 1.504 pounds to the dollar.

The Government is spending millions to keep it that way, as it recognises that a sudden slump in the value of the pound could lead to civil disturbances. This week the Saudi Government deposited $1 billion and Kuwait $500 million with the central bank to prop up the pound, with the promise of more if needed.

Riad Salameh, the governor of the bank, told The Times: “We are capable of holding the exchange rate, and it’s very important for social stability because most people are paid in Lebanese pounds.”

The Israeli blockade has stopped deliveries of dollars, so banks, cash machines and backstreet money-changers will only pay out in Lebanese pounds and not US currency.

Dr Salameh, who is tipped as a future presidential candidate, said: “We have to keep confidence in our currency and the credibility of our markets.” There had been no massive flight of capital so far, he added.

With a $39 billion debt, Lebanon cannot afford to borrow any more, and the governor believes that there should be a new fund created by international donations to pay for war damage. “We have a good economic future, and I’m optimistic because this economy is based on people and they are educated, resilient and resourceful,” he said.

Scores of Lebanon’s brightest do not share that view and after the latest airstrikes Nadine Younes, 22, joined the queue outside the Canadian Embassy to plead for an emigration visa. She is a marketing executive who lives just a mile from the district bombed yesterday. “We are dying bit by bit. We can’t go through this every few years. My generation has to leave this city.

“I want to work, and to live, and you can’t do either here anymore,” she said.

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