Thousands of supporters gathered in downtown Beirut on Friday to mark the 20th anniversary of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination, which comes amid seismic regional political shifts.
The ousting of Bashar Assad in December after 54 years of family rule in Syria marked the fall of a government long accused of orchestrating Hariri’s assassination and other political killings in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—whose members were convicted by a U.N-backed tribunal for their role in Hariri’s murder— now faces its own turning point following the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in September. Nasrallah’s funeral is set for February 23.
“This is the beginning of justice. If the justice of the earth did not serve us, no one escapes the justice of heaven,” said Hariri’s son, former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, as he addressed a huge crowd in the capital Beirut.
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