Snipers shot people from rooftops. Masked gunmen fired back with rocket-propelled grenades and B 7 rockets. A dangerous schoolchildren took cover in school hallways. And to top it all off, violence was all playing out along the capital's former Green Line, a major battlefront that divided Beirut's Christian east from the predominantly Muslim west during the 15 year civil war that ended in 1990.
It was enough to send shivers down the spine of a people still reeling from collective traumas both fresh - - what can be done with last summer's Beirut port blast - and old. The wounds of the civil war continue to fester, and watching smoke billowing from buildings covered by pockmarks from battles long past was almost too much for ordinary people to bear.
Yet for all the new optics of Wednesday's politics, the harrowingly familiar context is familiar. Instead, violence is divorced from a fault-line that emerges from these terrible realities.
The probe into the port explosion that killed more than 200 people is at the heart of Thursday's tumult. The investigation - - the biggest legal challenge to Lebanon's ruling elite, who are also held over from the civil war - is widely seen as a potential milestone, a tool through which the country can begin to shed its blood-soaked past.
Neither the unknown gunmen who emerged from a Hezbollah-organized protest against the port probe, nor the masked snipers who appeared as defenders of the investigation, have a vested interest in Lebanon moving forward or finding answers to the devastation of August 2020. Hezbollah and its ally Amal have accused the Christian Right-wing Party and lebanese militia, the former Forces LF of being behind the shooting - an accusation the LF rejected. Thursday's fighters appear keen to keep the tiny Mediterranean country stuck in the past when the population has overwhelmingly voiced support for a better future. The judge leading the investigation into the probe, Tarek Bitar, emerged as a champion of those people. Bitar, on the other hand, has positioned himself as the most vocal opponent of Hezbollah. Are people of all stripes killed by the August 2020 explosion? In that same vein, Hezbollah led a multi-religious offensive on behalf of a political elite which has not been prosecuted in the probe so far. Bitar has sought to interview top officials across the board and has recently issued arrest warrants against three former ministers — a Sunni Muslim, a Shia Muslim and a Maronite Christian. The divisions do not show down the age-old confessional lines in Lebanon. Instead some say observers should be looking at the implications of the probe itself. The investigation into the Beirut attack has rattled the political elite in a way that the bomb itself, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, could not. A man runs for cover as shotfire breaks out at a protest in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, October 14, 2017. Fighters from the Hezbollah movement take aim during clashes. A mother hides behind a car behind her children as gunfire continues. Bullets struck a building during the clashes. There were multiple reports of shooters shooting at the demonstrators from rooftops of buildings. Fighters from the Amal and Hezbollah movements are seen during the clashes in Beirut. Lebanese soldiers protect teachers as they flee their school. Bullet shells are seen on the ground. Men help an elderly woman evacuate the area. The Lebanese security forces react to gunfire during the protest. After shot fire erupted, glass and debris are seen. Deployed Lebanese soldiers arrive at the scene. People take part in the protest near the Palace of Justice. The ruling class appears to be shaking its boots after having unsuccessfully petitioned Bitar to remove him from his position. This is the same elite who survived a civil war, thanks to an amnesty law that marked the end of the conflict, and was largely unfazed by the nationwide popular uprising in October 2019 and the devastating economic catastrophe that followed. The implications of the investigation may extend beyond Lebanon and to the Arab world at large. This is a region well-known for blatantly undermining its judiciary, even as the appetite for accountability continues to grow among an increasingly frustrated Arab youth. If Bitar can see his investigation through, then he could set a precedent for the entire region.