BEIRUT, Lebanon — With an anti-Syrian fury that recalled the aftermath of the assassination of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the center of Lebanon on Thursday for the funeral of the government minister slain Tuesday, Pierre Gemayel.
Mourning gave way to calls for unity, defiance and confrontation. Demonstrators in the crowd shouted for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, who is allied with Syria. They cursed the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and spat on pictures of Gen. Michel Aoun, a Christian who has aligned his party with Hezbollah.
It seemed that Lebanon's struggling pro-Western movement, at least for a day, regained its footing in outrage and fear at yet another political assassination. Gemayel, 34, was the fifth anti-Syrian leader to be killed since Hariri was killed in February 2005 — and his supporters immediately blamed Syria and its allies in Lebanon, charges Syria strongly denied.
The size of the crowd spoke to the tensions dividing Lebanon, and the prospect that those divisions will lead to more conflict and bloodshed. Politically speaking, this was what the governing coalition was waiting for, a chance to rally its forces in a show of force, just as Hezbollah had in a rally in September to celebrate its "divine victory" in the 34-day war with Israel.
"We will not be scared, we will not give up, we will not stop," said Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces, speaking on a stage behind a lectern of bulletproof glass.
His small political party is part of the March 14 governing coalition, named for the day in 2005 that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese jammed Beirut's central square to demand the end to Syrian control. The rally came one month after Hariri's death.
There were obvious moments of anguish. Former President Amin Gemayel, the slain minister's father, nearly broke down, then regained enough composure to wave to the crowd.
The funeral resembled a political convention: Buttons and banners, hats and scarves were all produced specially for the day. Speakers, slogans and inspirational music abounded. Huge banners of the dead minister's portrait were carried around. One banner, nearly three stories tall, hung from the top of an extended crane. "Lebanon for life," one banner said.
But the assembled seethed with anger. Rajaa Ahmad, 39, a Sunni who attended the demonstration with her seven children, said, "There will come a day when we have revenge."