Shia Hezbollah and allies held funerals on Friday for three activists shot dead during sectarian clashes in Beirut and called for unity among the Lebanese to stop their country sliding to civil war.
"We urge all religious figures, Christian and Muslim, and all sensible people in Lebanon to shoulder their responsibility before it's too late," senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbik told mourners at one of the funerals. "This pure, precious blood was spilled for the sake of unity and it will leave its mark."