A small grenade went off after it was fired at a building near U.N. offices in a downtown Beirut square early Sunday, wounding four people, police said. According to the AP, police and troops surrounded Riad Solh Square after the grenade was fired from a rifle and hit the building, which also houses dance clubs.
The blast broke windows in the building and damaged two cars, witnesses said. The wounded, all civilians, were taken to a hospital for treatment. Two were later released.
A heavily fortified building housing U.N. offices is located in the same square, as is a building containing international and Arab media offices. The prime minister's office is some 100 yards away and the Parliament building is on another square a few buildings behind Riad Solh.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Saniora said his government planned to pay US$53,000 in compensation to families whose houses were destroyed in Beirut's southern suburbs during the July-August war with Israel.
Saniora told a press conference that the compensation package of 80 million Lebanese pounds would include furniture and sanitary ware for a single "residential unit."
"We have decided that each residential unit would be the base for compensation in order to give people more flexibility," he told reporters. It is estimated that 50,000 housing units were damaged in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
"We have taken upon ourselves to confront the reconstruction battle and we shall not let our people face the aftermath of the enemy's aggression on their own," he said.
