BEKFAYA, Lebanon: Thousands of mourners paid their respects today to the family of Pierre Gemayel, the Lebanese cabinet minister and strong opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon whose assassination on Tuesday jolted a nation paralyzed by political conflict.

Dressed mostly in black, people lined up to embrace or shake the hands of members of Mr. Gemayel's family in his hometown of Bekfaya. Sympathizers waving the white and green flags of the Phalange party, founded by Mr. Gemayel's grandfather, walked behind the coffin as it was taken through the streets. Women on balconies above them threw rice on the procession.

Mourners, some clutching rosaries, sobbed or reflected silently over the closed coffin after it was set beneath arched stone passages in the family compound. Security was tight, with the army and internal security forces in place as ministers and diplomats swelled the crowd of villagers and party officials who came to Bekfaya, on a hilltop 20 miles outside Beirut, to pay respects and offer condolences.

Today, the first day of mourning for Mr. Gemayel, 34, was Lebanon's Independence Day, but celebrations were canceled. The funeral will be held on Thursday.
The killing of Mr. Gemayel, the scion of a prominent Maronite Christian family, inflamed tensions between the anti-Syria coalition trying to hold its government together and the Syrian-allied opposition, led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-supported Shiite group. Hezbollah has threatened street protests if it is not given more power.

Lebanese radio reported that shots were also fired Tuesday into the Beirut office of Michel Pharaon, a Greek Catholic member of the ruling coalition and minister for parliamentary affairs.

Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, vowed in a televised speech on Tuesday that his government would hold firm. "I pledge to you that your blood will not go in vain," Mr. Siniora said. "We will not let the murderers control the fate of Lebanon and the future of its children."

In truth, his government may already be on life support. Last week, six pro-Syria ministers aligned with Hezbollah resigned after a failed effort to gain greater control over the government. A seventh minister had resigned earlier in an unrelated conflict.

With Mr. Gemayel's death, there may now be too few ministers to pass any measures, and it appears that if the government were to lose one more minister it would automatically collapse.

The prime minister's political allies in the so-called March 14 coalition - a pro-Western group of Sunni Muslims, Druse and Christians - blamed Syria for the killing.

"We believe the hand of Syria is all over the place," Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, said on Tuesday, shortly after Mr. Gemayel was pronounced dead.

Today, the Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, said he expected more bloodshed.

"It seems the Syrian regime will continue with the assassinations," he said at a news conference, according to a report by Reuters. "I expect more assassinations but no matter what they do, we are here and we will be victorious."

Officials in Damascus and Syria's allies in Lebanon condemned the killing.

Mr. Gemayel, the industry minister, was the fifth anti-Syria figure to be killed since Mr. Hariri's assassination rocked Lebanon in February 2005.

The killing reverberated far beyond Lebanon. Condemnations poured in from Britain, Germany, Italy, France, the European Union, Jordan, Egypt and the United States.

President Bush suggested in a statement that the assassination was part of a plan by Syria, Iran and its allies to "foment instability and violence" in Lebanon.

The United States is heavily invested in the survival of Mr. Siniora's government, which has offered Washington a chance - however faded - to thwart the spread of Iranian influence in the region.

The killing also is likely to complicate any American effort to enlist Syria's help to stabilize Iraq. The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after Mr. Hariri was assassinated nearly two years ago and suspicion fell heavily on Syria. Now the White House is under pressure domestically and abroad to engage with Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq.

But the suspicion that Syria is behind the efforts to destabilize Lebanon will make it nearly impossible for Washington to send a full ambassador back to Damascus without appearing to have abandoned the Siniora government.