The Central Beirut Rally.

With an anti-Syria fury that recalled the aftermath of the assassination of former PM Hariri, about one million of people on Nov. 23 poured into the centre of Beirut for the funeral of Gemayel. Mourning gave way to calls for unity, defiance and confrontation. Demonstrators in the crowd shouted for the resignation of the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, who is a puppet of Syria's Ba'thist dictatorship. They cursed Syrian President Assad, and Hizbullah Secretary-General Nasrallah, and spat on pictures of General Michel Aoun, a Christian who has aligned his party with Hizbullah.

It seemed that Lebanon's struggling pro-West movement, at least for a day, regained its footing in outrage and fear at yet another political assassination. Gemayel was the sixth anti-Syria leader murdered since Hariri and former Minister Basel Flayhan were hit in February 2005 - and his supporters immediately blamed Syria and its Lebanese clients, charges Syria denied.

The sheer size of the crowd spoke to the tensions which divided Lebanon, and the prospect those divisions will lead to more conflict and more bloodshed.

Politically, this was what the governing coalition was waiting for, a chance to rally its supporters in a huge show of force, just as Hizbullah had in a rally last month to celebrate its so-called "divine victory" in the 34-day war with Israel which ended on Aug. 14. "We will not be scared, we will not give up, we will not stop", said Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces, speaking on a stage behind a lectern of bulletproof glass. His small political party is part of the March 14 governing coalition, named for the day in 2005 which over a million of Lebanese jammed Beirut's central square to demand the end to Syrian control. That rally came one month after Hariri's death.

There were obvious moments of anguish on Nov. 23. Former President Amin Gemayel, the slain minister's father, nearly broke down, then regained enough composure to wave to the crowd. The funeral resembled a political convention: buttons and banners, hats and scarves, were all produced specially for the day. Speakers, and slogans and inspirational music abounded.

Huge banners with the dead minister's portrait were carried around. One, nearly three stories high, hung from the top of an extended crane. "Lebanon for life", one banner read. But the assembled seethed with anger. "There will come a day when we have revenge", said Raja' Ahmad, a Sunni woman who attended the demonstration with her seven children.

The political blood fight taking place in Lebanon has had many ups and downs. Before the war with Israel - sparked on July 12 when Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers - Hizbullah was being pressed to disarm. Since the war with Israel, the pro-American March 14th coalition has been pressed by Hizbullah and its allies to step down or hand over veto power. Six of the Hizbullah-aligned ministers resigned from the cabinet, and the Hizbullah alliance was on the verge of staging street protests to press the government to resign. Those protests, however, were at least postponed when Gemayel was killed.

On Nov. 23, PM Siniora called on the ministers who resigned to return to the cabinet and for a resumption of political talks aimed at finding a compromise to head off a collapse of the government. While there is no sign that Hizbullah lost standing with its base of support after the death of Gemayel, there are indications that Aoun may have been badly damaged politically.

With the exception of Damascus, Aoun seemed to generate the most hatred among those who gathered in central Beirut on Nov. 23. "He split the Christian line", Fady Ghazehli, 21, shouted after spitting on a picture of Aoun, adding: "He used to say he would disarm Hizbullah. Now he is with Hizbullah".

Taken together, the reaction to Gemayel's death could be a strategic boost to the government coalition. "Morally, the government coalition has had a lot of gains", said Oussama Safa, general director of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, regarding the murder. He added: "They defused the opposition. They revved up the March 14th coalition, which was dead".

Gemayel was the son of one of Lebanon's most prominent and divisive Christian families. His grandfather, also named Pierre, had in 1936 founded the Phalange Party, a Christian, nationalist, religious militant organisation once aligned with Israel. Even as Amin Gemayel called for calm, whispers flew around the city that the Phalange would never let the death go unanswered. (The young Pierre Gemayel was ambushed as he drove in his car, when two cars rammed him and three gunmen sprayed his car with bullets).

The so-called Cedar Revolution after Hariri's murder was hailed as a chance for Lebanon's notoriously fractured religious communities to unite. While that has revealed itself as a false promise, Gemayel's funeral served as an opposing bookend to the optimism of March 14th. The Cedar Revolution led Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon, and at the same time the UN Security Council (UNSC) ordered an investigation into Hariri's murder. On Nov. 22, the UNSC moved with uncommon speed and expanded the investigation to include Gemayel's death. The March 14th forces charge that Hizbullah and its allies have tried to block formation of the tribunal to hear evidence in order to serve their Syrian allies.

Last year's protest was in reaction to Hariri's murder, which was widely blamed on Syria. Damascus denied any responsibility but withdrew its troops and intelligence apparatus from the country shortly afterwards. Some newspapers in Lebanon are now talking about a "new March 14" and anti-Syria politicians are hoping to galvanise their supporters. They have again pointed an accusing finger at Syria over the murder of Gemayel. Damascus has condemned the killing.

The UN, still looking into the killing of Hariri and a string of other prominent anti-Syria personalities, has accepted a Lebanese government request for help in the investigation into the latest murder. In its reports so far, the UN has implicated both pro-Syria Lebanese security officials and Syrian security officials. It suggests the killings are linked.