Lebanese forces fired tear gas at protesters who set fires and vandalized stores in anger over Beirut's deadly explosion and the government mismanagement that caused it

• Lebanese security forces fired tear gas on dozens of protesters Thursday night.
• They were demonstrating against the government's ineptitude after a deadly explosion killed more than 100 people and injured 5,000 more on Tuesday.
• Authorities say the blast was started after a fire ignited a stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored at a port. Officials reportedly ignored warnings about the stockpile for years.
• The protests could signal the restarting of an anti-government protest movement that had fizzled out amid the coronavirus outbreak.
• For years, many people in Lebanon have become angered over the perceived incompetence and corruption of the country's ruling class.

Lebanese security forces used tear gas to break up a riot in central Beirut late Thursday, as dozens protested against the government after the deadly blast that ripped through the capital earlier this week.

The protesters gathered near the country's parliament, where they started fires, vandalized stores, and threw rocks at security forces, before ultimately being pushed back, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the state-run National News Agency.

The unrest was sparked by Tuesday's explosion, which killed at least 157 people, injured more than 5,000, and destroyed entire neighborhoods in the capital city.

Lebanese authorities have blamed the blast on a fire igniting more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at a port.

Questions have been raised about why such a large amount of the highly-flammable substance had been stored for years at the port. Some Lebanese authorities have been accused of ignoring warnings about the explosives for years.

Several Beirut port officials have been put under house arrest after Tuesday's blast.

The riot on Thursday night, and a planned demonstration on Saturday, could signal the restarting of an anti-government protest movement that started last fall, but which fizzled out during the coronavirus outbreak.

For years, many people in Lebanon have grown fed up with the perceived ineptitude and corruption of the country's ruling class, which has been in power since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990.

In the wake of Tuesday's explosion, two government officials — lawmaker Marwan Hamadeh and Lebanon's ambassador to Jordan, Tracy Chamoun — have resigned.

In a televised statement, Chamoun said she could "no longer tolerate" the government ineptitude and was resigning "in protest against state negligence, theft and lying."

"This disaster rang a bell: we should not show any of them mercy and they all must go. This is total negligence," Chamoun added, according to The Guardian.

• Read more:
• Lebanon was already cash-strapped and on the brink. The Beirut explosion could shatter its residents.
• The ship carrying the ammonium nitrate that blew up in Beirut was abandoned in 2014 by a Russian businessman, who has said nothing since the explosion
• Lebanon's devastating blast came in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis, frequent power outages, and hospitals struggling to contain the coronavirus
• I lived in four apartments within a kilometer of the explosion in Beirut yesterday. Two of them are now completely destroyed.