BEIRUT—Waving red, white and green Lebanese flags, thousands of people poured into a major square in downtown Beirut Saturday, staging the largest of the demonstrations that began last week over garbage piling up in the streets of Beirut following the closure of a main landfill.
The government’s failure to resolve the crisis has evolved into wider protests against a political class that has dominated Lebanon since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990 and a government that has failed to provide even basic services to the people. Protesters filled up the square known as Martyrs’ Square, shouting anti-government slogans in a peaceful, carnival-like atmosphere.
