Protesters yesterday cut off main roads in various Lebanese areas, and hundreds of them gathered on the road leading to the presidential palace on the outskirts of Beirut, a day after statements by President Michel Aoun, considered that they ignore their demands raised a month ago, to change the political class.
Aoun, in an interview broadcast last night on all Lebanese television, proposed the formation of a "techno-political" government, while the demonstrators demanded an independent government of specialists, away from any party loyalty or affiliation with current officials. The President spoke nervously and in a tone that the demonstrators considered "provocative", criticizing the lack of leaders representing the demonstrators to dialogue with the Authority.
Lebanon witnessed a loud night, during which the demonstrators immediately took to the streets in all areas, burned tires, cut off roads, and placed obstacles on other roads. There was tension and a clash in Khaldeh, south of Beirut, between demonstrators and a car carrying military personnel, which developed into shooting by one of the soldiers, causing the death of Alaa Abu Fakhr.
The demonstrators blocked vital roads yesterday morning in the center of Beirut and its entrances, and at several points on the road leading from Beirut to northern Lebanon, in Tripoli and Akkar in the north, the western Bekaa in the east, Sidon in the south and other areas.
In Jal el-Dib, east of Beirut, demonstrators raised a picture of Alaa Abu al-Fakhr in the middle of the road, calling him "the martyr of the revolution." The demonstrators had been opening days to open the way to return to normal life, and organized gatherings in front of public utilities and banks, to prevent their employees from joining their duty stations. But anger prompted them to return to banditry. The army preempted an invitation by the demonstrators to go to the presidential palace, to close all roads leading to the Baabda area where the palace, with iron obstacles and barbed fence, according to a photographer told AFP.
Alaa Abu Fakhr was killed in front of his wife and child. The army command announced an investigation into the shooter.