Beirut gripped by worst street violence in 13 years

Beirut’s worst street violence in 13 years led to the death of seven people as hundreds of armed militia men took to the streets and much of the city was forced into lockdown by heavy fighting.

The bloody violence took on a sectarian tone that invoked images of the Lebanese civil war and alarmed residents who had long feared that the multiple crises ravaging the country could spark a deadly conflagration.

The trigger for the clashes in neighbourhoods near the justice courts, which left dozens more injured, was a protest by members of Amal and Hezbollah, two predominantly Shia political parties, against a judicial probe into the massive blast in the city’s port last year.