Heavy fighting on Thursday claimed at least six lives and left dozens wounded in Lebanon’s capital as an escalation of tensions around last year’s massive portside explosion turned parts of Beirut into a war zone.
The army deployed tanks and troops to quell street battles that sparked memories of the 1975-1990 civil war for a city already traumatized by last year’s blast disaster and Lebanon’s worst-ever economic crisis.
Bullets smashed into houses, while panicked civilians cowered indoors as the sound of gunfire and grenade blasts mixed with the wail of ambulance sirens for more than three hours.
Photo: Reuters
The unrest broke out after shots were fired at a demonstration by the Muslim Shiite Hezbollah and Amal movements.
The protesters were rallying against judge Tarek Bitar, tasked with investigating the massive explosion of poorly stored ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port that killed more than 210 people and destroyed swathes of the capital on Aug. 4 last year.
The judge had in the past few days been in the sights of Hezbollah and Amal after he subpoenaed top officials in his probe.
Reporters said that Thursday’s violence started with sniper fire from residential buildings targeting the Hezbollah and Amal supporters, who returned fire with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun called for calm in a televised speech late on Thursday.
“Weapons cannot return as a means of communication between Lebanese parties, because we all agreed to turn this dark page of our history,” Aoun said in reference to the civil war.
Political leaders were “heading towards a solution” out of the crisis, he said.
The army said that it had responded to an exchange of gunfire in the Tayouneh-Badaro area as protesters headed to the Palace of Justice.
It “raided a number of places looking for the shooters, and detained nine” people in total, including individuals from both sides, it said, adding that one was of Syrian nationality.
The military did not specify who started the firefight.
Lebanese Minister of the Interior Bassam Mawlawi said that the “exchange started with sniper fire, with the first casualty shot in the head.”
At least six people were killed, all by gunfire, Mawlawi said, without specifying who fired the shots.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health said that 32 people were wounded.
Amal said that three of its members were killed, while Hezbollah announced that funerals of two men and one woman were to take place yesterday.
A doctor at Beirut’s Sahel hospital earlier told reporters that a 24-year-old woman was killed after she was hit in the head by a stray bullet inside her home.
Heavy fire rang out as ambulances rushed wounded people through the deserted streets, a few blocks from the Palace of Justice.
Iran-backed Hezbollah and Amal in a joint statement blamed the Lebanese Forces, a party that is staunchly opposed to them, saying that the opposing side had “fired sniper shots with the aim to kill.”
Political analyst Karim Bitar voiced concern about more trouble ahead.
“Hezbollah taking to the streets and throwing all its weight in this battle ... could lead to big clashes and to the destabilization of the entire country,” Bitar said.
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