In Lebanon, protesters determined despite a pro-Hezbollah attack

The unprecedented popular uprising continues in Lebanon, despite incidents Monday night. The protesters remain determined to bring down a corrupt ruling class, although they have been targeted by violent attacks by supporters of the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal parties in Beirut and Tire in the South.

The latter again approached by motorcycle from the Martyrs 'Square, the epicenter of the protests in the capital guarded by the police, and threw pebbles at protesters' tents, chanting "Shia, Shiite" before going away, noted an AFP correspondent.

Later, shots were heard in the Beirut district of Cola, passing a convoy of motorcycles, reported local TV. The area has been closed to traffic by security forces that have deployed, according to the national news agency ANI.

In another district, the army deployed to separate the supporters of the two Shiite parties and those of the Future Movement, the resigning Prime Minister Saad Hariri, according to ANI. The party called on its supporters to avoid any rally.

In Tire, the large southern city and bastion of Hezbollah and Amal, assailants set fire to protest tents on a square (tweet below), despite the presence of the Lebanese army.

احراق "عفوي" للخيم بمدينة # صور مع نغمة "عفوية" بالخلفية واطلاق رصاص "عفوي". وهيدي مستمرون / ان ع صحة السلامة ✌️✌️ # لبنان_ينتفض # لبنان pic.twitter.com/v6dSekAxj0

Earlier, the UN Security Council had called for "respect for the right to protest by peacefully assembling". Council members "call on all actors to conduct an intensive national dialogue and to maintain the peacefulness of demonstrations by avoiding violence and respecting the right to protest by peacefully meeting," said the statement, which was unanimously approved by the outcome of a regular Council meeting on Lebanon.

"To scare us"

Since its outbreak on October 17, sporadic clashes have raged protesters against supporters of Amal and Hezbollah, whose respective leaders Nabih Berri and Hassan Nasrallah are challenged in the same way as the entire ruling class. But the clashes that took place late Sunday night were unprecedented in their magnitude, forcing the army to intervene to calm the situation.

Before dawn and chanting slogans to the glory of Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri, Speaker of Parliament since 1992, their supporters have stalled protesters blocking a bridge overlooking downtown Beirut. They then stormed the nearby Martyrs Square and destroyed tents. Security forces have been criticized by the protesters for their lack of responsiveness.

"They want to scare us to keep us from going on," loose in reference to attackers Danny Ayyache, who blocked Monday morning with other protesters an entrance to a neighborhood of Beirut before being dispersed. "It only reinforces our determination."

"Why does nobody stop these attacks?", Laments Sélim Mourad, 31-year-old teacher, dislodged from a road he was blocking. "The police are able to stop them".

Nine people were arrested north of Beirut for blocked roads before being released in the evening. Other axes were blocked in Tripoli (north) and in Bekaa (east).

In the evening, hundreds of Hezbollah and Amal supporters demonstrated in the southern suburbs of Beirut, denouncing an accident that killed at dawn a man and a woman whose car hit a barrier on the installed road, according to the two Shiite formations, by anti-government protesters.

The protesters denied, publishing on social networks a map showing the positions of their roadblocks.

With AFP