Lebanon was on edge over the weekend after seven people were shot and killed during a pro-Hezbollah march in Beirut calling for the removal of the judge investigating last year's Beirut port blast.
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In the wake of accusations that the Christian "Lebanese Forces" party and its leader Samir Geagea were behind the incident, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, ran a front page story depicting Geagea as Adolf Hitler under the headline, "No Doubt."
In the article, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim al-Amine, wrote that Geagea "still doesn't care about faces, names or loved ones."
"Samir Geagea, you were the first to know what happened yesterday. Not through intelligence you never knew existed, but because you planned and prepared and carried out a crime that matches what you have done since you took up arms. It is a crime. Greater than all the crimes you have committed here and there, as [you strive] to start a widespread civil war… And you were not the only one to know what happened yesterday," al-Amine wrote.
A Beirut resident who spoke with Israel Hayom said the shooting at Shiite protesters was carried out by snipers and gunmen stationed on the roofs and balconies of buildings located along the route of Hezbollah and Amal supporters.
"Hezbollah and Amal [activists] deliberately passed through the Christian neighborhoods to provoke and defy the Christian residents as most of those killed and injured in the blast at the port were Christian residents in neighborhoods west of Beirut near the port," the resident said.
"They thought we would sit quietly while Hezbollah tried to steal Lebanon and turn it into another Iranian province as is happening in Syria. We are tired of Hezbollah doing everything to destroy Lebanon. The criminal negligence that caused the port explosion is also a result of Hezbollah's corrupt conduct in the country," he added.
Late Friday, Geagea denied that his group had planned the street violence and said a meeting held the day before was purely political.
Geagea told Voice of Beirut International radio that a meeting held on Wednesday by a political grouping the Lebanese Forces belongs to had discussed action options should Iran-backed Hezbollah succeed in efforts to remove the judge, Tarek Bitar.
He said the option agreed upon in that event was to call for a public strike, and nothing else.
Asked whether the presence of Lebanese Forces members in the areas of the Christian Ain al-Remmaneh and Teyouneh neighborhoods, where the shooting erupted, meant the incident was planned, Geagea said they were always present in these areas.
The security coordinator in the party contacted the authorities when they heard a protest was planned and asked for a heavy military presence in the area "as our priority was for the demonstration to pass by simply as a demonstration and not affect civil peace," Geagea said.
Geagea said his party was assured that would be the case.
"The army has arrested snipers so they need to tell us who they are and where they came from," he told the radio station.
Nineteen people have been detained so far in relation to the incident.
Geagea, whose party has close ties to Saudi Arabia, also criticized Lebanese President Michel Aoun over a phone call between the two during the incident.
Aoun's party, the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon's largest Christian bloc, is an ally of Hezbollah.
"I didn't like this call at all," Geagea said, saying Aoun implicitly made the same accusations of involvement that Hezbollah has by asking him to calm down the situation.
"This is totally unacceptable," said Geagea.
Perhaps surprisingly, meanwhile, the leader of the Free Patriotic movement, Gebran Bassil, said on Saturday that the investigation into the Beirut port blast should not be stopped, contrary to the position of ally Hezbollah.
"The Free Patriotic movement is [in favor of] continuing the probe, revealing the truth and putting those responsible on trial," Bassil said in a speech.
Bassil, who is Aoun's son-in-law, was hit with US sanctions last year for alleged corruption and his ties to Hezbollah. He has denied the allegations.
France, the United States and United Nations have appealed for calm but also insisted on the need to allow the port explosion probe to continue unhindered.
Thursday's violence has added to concerns for the stability of a country that is awash with weapons and grappling with an economic meltdown.
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