After shutting down last week in the face of the renewed Israeli bombardment of Beirut, the Lebanese American University will begin offering some limited services to its students and staff members tomorrow, but the university’s two campuses will remain largely closed.

The partial reopening seeks to balance the need to provide those services with a desire to keep workers out of harm’s way, according to a notice on the university’s Web site. The campuses in Beirut and Byblos closed last Friday.

Meanwhile, the American University of Beirut has decided to reopen its medical school at the end of the month. Classes will begin on August 28, whether or not the security situation improves, said William L. Hoffman, the university’s representative in Washington. He noted that the medical school and accompanying hospital remained open through the worst of the Lebanese Civil War, in the 1970s and 1980s, and that most of the medical students are Lebanese, and so could make it to the campus.

But the hospital has only 10 days of fuel left, according to an article in today’s New York Times. Nadim Cortas, dean of the faculty of medicine and vice president for medical affairs, told the Times that the hospital faced a “doomsday scenario.” Fuel rationing, including shutting off the air conditioning, could stretch out emergency reserves, which are to be used when Lebanon’s main power plants run out of fuel, according to an article in today’s Newsday. Fuel tankers are still refusing to make deliveries to the war zone (The Chronicle, August 3).