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The Lebanese Red Cross reports five people killed during clashes in the capital Lebanon , Beirut. Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told reporters snipers and gunmen shot people in the head while four B7 rockets were fired into the air, in the worst violence in the crisis-hit capital in more than 10 years.
Hundreds of supporters Hizbullah The Iranian-backed and its main ally, Amal, were marching towards the city’s Palace of Justice when gunfire was fired at protesters from an unknown location. This forced demonstrators and journalists to take cover, according to military statements and local television stations.
There have been several local reports of snipers shooting at demonstrators from rooftops in the area. Local TV stations and social media videos also showed masked protesters firing what appeared to be AK-47s from behind roadblocks and garbage dumps. They appeared to be shooting back at the gunmen, and black smoke was rising from one of the nearby buildings.
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In a statement, the Lebanese military, which is widely deployed to the scene of the firefight, said it would shoot any gunman at the site and asked people to clear roads.
Witnesses reported hearing rocket fire, and smoke could be seen rising from inside the building which appeared to have been fired upon. The epicenter of the violence, Tayouneh, is close to the birthplace of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. This has raised the specter of further violence in the crisis-hit country.
“It is clear that those who opened fire on the protesters were an organized armed group that had been planning this attack since yesterday,” a top Hezbollah official was quoted as saying. CNN.
“We will not retaliate. They want to drag us into civil strife and we don’t want to sow civil strife,” he stressed.
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