The funerary procession was solemn but popular. Masses littered the streets from the house of the former Prime Minister, along the planned route of the march to the place of burial. Thousands upon thousands nothing unified them but their sadness for the death of Hariri and their anger directed towards Syria. It was a first, at least for me, that I heard Muslim crowds chanting in unison: “Syria out, Syria out”

Throughout the civil war and even before Muslims were always on the side of Syria, wrong was it or right. With the death of Hariri it was over. All Lebanon was shouting for Syria to go out.

As I walked down to the Martyr’s square – Hariri was buried on the side of that square inside a mosque he built- the most amazing site I have seen as a Lebanese welcomed me.

That square used, in the civil war, to be the playground of the militias’ snipers and shells. It was a no man’s land. Martyrs’ square used to be part of the “green line” that divided Beirut into two halves, a Muslim side on the left of the square and a Christian one on the right.

On that day echoes of the churches bells from the Christian side mingled with the reverberation of the muezzin’s chants from the Muslim side, above a square filled with Lebanese weeping for another slain national leader.