Against the backdrop of religious slaughter in Iraq, tensions are particularly thick between Lebanon's Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Members of both sects speak of a regional spillover, saying that news from Iraq, along with growing Arab anxiety over the rising influence of Shiite-ruled Iran, has worsened the animosities here.
"If we hear on the news at night that Shiites have been killed by Sunnis in Iraq, then they want to attack Sunnis here in Lebanon," said Ismail, the gas station employee. "It makes them hate us even more."
This is not the same Lebanon that slipped into civil war three decades ago, with the most glaring difference this: Instead of Christians fighting Muslims, the most heated divisions are emerging among rival Christians and, especially, between Sunnis and Shiites.
"It's much more among communities, internally, than between communities," said Fadia Kiwan, head of political science at Beirut's St. Joseph University. "The tension that is of concern to everybody now is the emergence of a Sunni and Shiite split. The situation is very critical."
Tensions also have flared between Christians who are still loyal to the government and the followers of Gen. Michel Aoun, a popular Christian leader who has forged an unlikely alliance with Hezbollah. The night Gemayel was killed, furious young men from the slain minister's Falangist Party attacked Aoun's posters and burned his militia flags in Beirut's Christian neighborhoods.
The tiny gas station that came under attack stands at the entrance to a small enclave of about 60 Sunni families. A ramshackle maze tacked together from cinderblocks and scraps of corrugated tin, their neighborhood is an impoverished island in a sea of Shiites.
These are the southern suburbs, indisputably Hezbollah's turf. But above a rusting fuel tank at the small gas station, Sunnis have tacked up a massive banner printed with the pictures of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; his son, parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri; and the elder Hariri's Sunni driver, who hailed from a nearby neighborhood and was killed in February 2005 along with his boss.
"Our eyes are on you," read the Arabic lettering swimming across a backdrop of Lebanese flags.
The massive poster is a sign of defiance. The younger Hariri has accused Syria of assassinating Lebanon's leaders, and is battling to establish an international tribunal to prosecute his father's killers. He is also locked in a political battle with Hezbollah, which has long been backed by Syria.
