BEIRUT (Dispatches) — At least six people were killed and 60 others injured in Beirut, where armed groups shot from rooftops at Hezbollah supporters, who had gathered to against the judge leading the probe into last year’s blast in the city’s port.
The attackers used pistols, automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, in scenes reminiscent of the 1975-90 civil war. Gunfire echoed for hours, and ambulances rushed to pick up casualties. Snipers shot from buildings. Bullets penetrated apartment windows in the area. Schools were evacuated and residents hid in shelters.
The chaos raised the specter of a return to sectarian violence in a country already embroiled in multiple crises, including one of the world’s worst economic crises of the past 150 years.
The shooting began shortly after the start of the protest organized by Hezbollah and its allies from the Amal Movement against Judge Tarek Bitar, who is leading the investigation into last year’s massive port explosion.
Several Lebanese officials had accused Bitar of politicizing the investigation by charging and summoning some officials and not others. They want him removed.
Tensions over the port blast have contributed to Lebanon’s many troubles, including a currency collapse, hyperinflation, soaring poverty and an energy crisis leading to extended electricity blackouts.
The probe centers on hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate that were improperly stored at a port warehouse that detonated on Aug. 4, 2020. The blast killed at least 215 people, injured thousands and destroyed parts of nearby neighborhoods. It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history and further devastated the country already beset with political divisions and financial woes.
On Thursday, shortly before the planned protest, an appeals court turned down a request to remove Bitar from his post filed by two lawmakers who are defendants in the case, both of them allies of Hezbollah.
The calls for the judge’s removal upset some groups.
The right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea mobilized supporters Wednesday evening after Hezbollah and Amal called for the protest at the Justice Palace, located on the former front line separating predominantly Muslim and Christian areas of Beirut. Videos circulating on social media Wednesday night showed supporters of the Christian Lebanese Forces marching in the streets, carrying large crosses.
In a statement Thursday, the two Shia groups said their protesters came under fire from snipers deployed over rooftops. Among the dead — all Shia members — were two Hezbollah members.
The army also said protesters came under fire, but later in the evening said an “altercation and

exchange of fire” occurred as the protesters were headed to the Justice Palace.
Observers noted contradictions between the army’s first statement and the second statement that was issued after a meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland who was in town, meeting with Lebanese officials.
Grand Shia Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan held the U.S. embassy in Beirut and the judge probing the Beirut port explosion accountable for any bloodshed in Lebanon.
“The responsibility for any bloodshed, sedition, threats to domestic peace, and turmoil in Lebanon lies with the US Embassy and Tarek Bitar, who should be removed from the probe and interrogated,” he said in a statement.
Sheikh Qabalan also called on the Lebanese government and judiciary to take immediate action and to prevent the country from being drawn into another violent cycle instigated by Bitar and U.S. agents.
Interior Ministry: Geagea Militia Started Shooting
A top-level meeting at Lebanon’s interior ministry concluded that the Lebanese Forces (LF) party started the shooting, a report said.
All details of the bloody event were discussed in a meeting of the Central Security Council at the ministry, attended by leaders of security services, who unanimously agreed that members of the LF had started the shooting.
In a statement, Hezbollah and its ally Amal also said armed groups affiliated with Geagea’s Lebanese Forces party fired at the protesters from rooftops, aiming at their heads in an attempt to drag Lebanon into a new sectarian strife.
According to The Cradle, one of the officers attending the interior ministry meeting produced details about snipers spread out across the roofs of surrounding buildings in advance of events, who then opened fire on protesters as they passed from the Tayouneh area.
Armed LF assailants had already been deployed in the internal streets of the adjacent Ain al-Remmaneh neighborhood since early morning to prepare for the confrontation, a security source told the investigative media platform.
The unnamed source revealed that the protesters were initially attacked with stones by a mob and then shot at by LF assailants.
Military sources also said no one was arrested after the army stormed a number of buildings from which the shooting was directed. The army had said it arrested nine people, including a Syrian.
The Lebanese Forces is a Maronite Christian based political party and former Israeli-backed militia group during the civil war.
Geagea was tried and convicted in 1994 for ordering four political assassinations, including of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987, and the unsuccessful attempted assassination of Defense Minister Michel Murr in 1991.
The LF and Geagea are known for their close affiliation to the West and Saudi Arabia.
Former Lebanese president Emile Lahoud pointed to the involvement of the Zionist regime in addition to mercenaries and enemies of the resistance front in the violence.
“Demonstration is everyone’s legal right ... Demonstrators have the right to take to the streets and express their opinions. But, it is completely unacceptable for a sniper to target them from rooftops,” Lahoud told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency.
He said those dreaming of stoking a civil war in Lebanon will never attain their goal, demanding that the judiciary hold to account those responsible for the latest bloodshed.
“The masterminds of these events are foreign and domestic enemies of the resistance bloc... whatever takes place in Lebanon is chiefly meant to weaken the resistance in some way,” the former Lebanese president said.
Lahoud said mercenaries intend to break up Lebanon, wage a civil war in the country, weaken and finally disintegrate resistance, and serve the Israeli regime’s interests.
In a statement, Prime Minister Najib Mikati appealed for calm and urged people “not to be dragged into civil strife.”
Hezbollah said on Friday it would not be dragged into civil war. Speaking at the funeral of Hezbollah members martyred on Thursday, senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine said the Lebanese Forces is trying to start a civil war.
“Because they know that we don’t want civil strife, they dared to do that,” he said. “We will not be dragged into civil war but at the same time we will not let the blood of our martyrs be in vain.”
The coffins were draped in yellow Hezbollah flags and surrounded by men in military fatigues during the funeral in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Safieddine accused the LF of taking orders from the United States and of being financed by “some Arab countries”, an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia.
The dead included three members of the Amal Movement.