Stray gunfire from a funeral for a Hezbollah fighter in Beirut’s southern suburbs wounded three civilians Wednesday, a security source told The Daily Star.
An eight year-old Syrian boy identified as Mounir Hazini was shot in the head by one of the stray bullets in the Beirut neighborhood of Qasqas.
The source said that the boy, who is currently in a coma, is in critical condition.
A 15 year-old Syrian national, Afif Hussein al-Hasan, was wounded in his leg in the Cola area while a Lebanese national, Jihad Naim, 25, was shot in the thigh in the southern suburb of Bir Hassan.
Over the past week, rocket-propelled grenades were fired twice in Beirut's southern suburbs during the funerals of Hezbollah fighters who were killed in the clashes with jihadis along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria.
The injuries from stray bullets come four months after Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah urged his followers to avoid all gunfire during speeches and events.
“Considering the legal and Islamic prohibitions, the harm it causes to people and how it attenuates the [meaning of the] occasion, I address you with all insistence and call on you ... to totally avoid gunfire,” a letter signed by Nasrallah and released by his party’s media office said.
He called on all party leaders to help implement this decision and prevent any celebratory gunfire.
