(Beirut) A Syrian claiming to be acting to support the population of Gaza opened fire on the American embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday before being injured and arrested by the Lebanese army, the army and a judicial source said.

The American embassy, ​​located in an ultra-secure complex in the northern suburbs of Beirut, assured that all its members were safe.

“The American Embassy was fired upon by a man of Syrian nationality,” the army announced in a statement.  

“Army elements deployed in the area responded to the source of the shooting, injuring the man who was arrested and hospitalized,” she said.

A judicial source told AFP that the shooter, seriously injured, had claimed “to have carried out this attack to support Gaza”, where a war has pitted the Israeli army against Palestinian Hamas for almost eight months.

The American Embassy, ​​for its part, announced in a press release that shooting had been reported “near the entrance” of the complex, located in Awkar.

“Thanks to the rapid reaction” of the Lebanese security forces and the embassy security team, “our teams are safe and sound,” she added, specifying that it would remain closed for the day alone from Wednesday.

Security forces arrested the gunman’s brother, who lived in the Bekaa plain (east) near the Syrian border with his family, the judicial source said.

“An investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the facts and arrest all those involved” in this incident, said a statement from the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, specifying that Ambassador Lisa Johnson was outside the country.

In September 2023, a man opened fire on the embassy without causing any casualties. Lebanese authorities later announced that they had arrested him and indicated that he was a delivery man who was seeking “revenge” after being humiliated by security personnel.  

The events coincided with the anniversary of the explosion of a car bomb in 1984 in front of an annex of the American embassy, ​​which left eleven dead and dozens injured, attributed by the embassy to the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah.

The chancellery was established in these premises in Awkar, in the northern suburbs of Beirut, after a suicide attack which destroyed the embassy in April 1983 and left 63 dead, in the middle of the civil war (1975-1990). The attack was claimed by Islamic Jihad, a group linked according to Washington to Hezbollah.