Public anger boils over on Beirut streets

PM TO PROPOSE EARLY POLLS; DONOR CONFERENCE TODAY

Lebanese protesters stormed government ministries in Beirut and trashed the offices of the Association of Lebanese Banks yesterday as shots rang out in increasingly angry demonstrations over last week’s devastating explosion.

The protesters said their politicians should resign and be punished for negligence they say led to Tuesday’s blast, the biggest ever to hit Beirut, that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000.

In an attempt at appeasement, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab said he would propose early elections. But the mood on the streets was overwhelmingly dark and desperate. Tuesday’s tragedy has sparked fury among the population, already reeling from economic collapse that has pushed much of its middle class into poverty and chafing from decades of political corruption and cronyism.

Dozens of protesters broke into the foreign ministry where they burnt a portrait of President Michel Aoun, representative for many of a political class that has ruled Lebanon for decades and that they say is to blame for its current mess.

‘People want fall of regime’

TV footage showed protesters also breaking into the energy and economy ministries.

Tensions erupted as soon as protesters began to gather in central Martyrs’ Square. Soldiers and police forces fired tear gas and protesters threw rocks, adding to the bloodshed for a city that has already bled so much.

They chanted “the people want the fall of the regime”, reprising a popular chant from the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. They held posters saying “Leave, you are all killers”.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who had promised aid to rebuild the city would not fall into “corrupt hands”, will host a donor conference for Lebanon via video link today, his office said. US President Donald Trump said that he will join.