MUQAYBALEH, Lebanon: Angry residents of Wadi Khaled in north Lebanon held funerals Wednesday for three men shot and killed by the Syrian army a day earlier, as opposition leader Saad Hariri and MPs from the district lashed out at the Cabinet and demanded better protection of citizens.

The three Lebanese men – Maher Abu Zeid, from the village of Majdal, and brothers Ahmad and Kaser Hussein Zeid, from the village of Heet – were killed Tuesday evening by gunfire from the Syrian side of the border with north Lebanon.

The residents chanted slogans against Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime.

A military source told The Daily Star that investigations were under way to determine what the three Lebanese were doing when they were shot.

During a demonstration that followed the funeral, local officials called on the government to protect residents and to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

Hariri blasted the attack, saying “it shows how much this government is entrenched with the Syrian regime, how more shameful can this get?”

“The killing of three Lebanese in Akkar is outrageous, we condemn the total lack of responsibility of the government toward protecting its citizens,” Hariri, who has been outside the country since April, posted on Twitter.

“One of the inhabitants of Arsal was recently assassinated by the Syrian forces, and before that, numerous attacks and violations of the Lebanese-Syrian border took place, and the government did not react,” Hariri said in a separate statement by his press office.

“What is required today, more than ever before, is that the competent Lebanese authorities take the necessary measures to protect the Lebanese citizens and prevent such deplorable violations,” added Hariri.

Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, head of Hariri’s Future parliamentary bloc, demanded that the Cabinet provide “clear answers and take strict decisions to protect Lebanese borders against any violations or aggressions.”

Siniora said the killings “without a clear reason and inside the Lebanese territories constitute a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty, this crime is condemned and unacceptable.”

Chairing a Cabinet session at Baabda Palace Wednesday, President Michel Sleiman asked authorities to investigate the incident.

Several Akkar MPs who attended the funeral offered their condolences to the families of the three men.

Akkar MP Mouin Merehbi called for expanding the mandate of UNIFIL to include the protection of the northern border.

“Given that the president and the prime minister are too busy to tackle the affairs of Akkar and its people in all fields, we ask for their permission to expand the mandate of UNIFIL to include the northern border in Akkar and especially in Wadi Khaled and Arsal,” Merehbi said in a statement.

The lawmaker lashed out at Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn for “not responding to our calls for tasking our national Army with protecting the border and defending its people ... despite repetitive aggressions on people in their homes.”

The Wadi Khaled area has witnessed a number of security incidents since the start of the nine-month uprising in neighboring Syria, including incursions by the Syrian army. In late October, Syrian troops shot dead three of its citizens near the border of Wadi Khaled.

For his part, Khaled Zahraman, also an MP for Akkar, said that he feared the Syrian attack was a prelude to a security operation targeting the people of the north because they were hosting Syrian refugees.

Zahraman said in a statement that the shooting of the three Lebanese violated Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Separately, around 1,000 people called for supporting the residents of Wadi Khaled and Arsal in a sit-in held at Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque in the town of Abra, to the east of Sidon, following night prayers. Worshippers held banners attacking the Syrian regime and Assad, and hailing the “martyrs of Syria.”

Sheikh Ahmad Asir, the mosque’s imam, blasted the Syrian regime and Ghosn, calling him the “Syrian defense minister.”