Lebanese hold funerals for 7 killed in Beirut gunbattles

By SARAH EL DEEB and BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Funerals have taken place across Lebanon for seven people killed in gunbattles on the streets of Beirut the day before. Schools, banks and government offices across Lebanon shut down for a day of mourning on Friday. The confrontations had erupted on Thursday over a long-running probe into last year’s massive port blast in the Lebanese capital. It was the most violent confrontation in the city in years, echoing the nation’s darkest era of the 1975-90 civil war. The firefight raised the specter of a return to sectarian violence in a country already struggling through one of the world’s worst economic crises of the past 150 years.