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The Lebanese Army said that it had arrested nine people from both sides, including a Syrian.

As night fell, the country’s president, Michel Aoun, gave a televised address calling for calm, condemning gunmen who fired at protesters and promising they would be brought to justice. “Our country needs calm dialogue, and calm solutions and the respect for our institutions,” he said.

Mr. Aoun also said the investigation into the blast at the port would continue, putting him at odds with protest leaders.

Violence between religious groups is particularly dangerous in Lebanon, which has 18 recognized sects, including Sunni and Shiite Muslims, various denominations of Christians and others. Conflicts between them and the militias they maintain define the country’s politics and have often spilled over into violence, most catastrophically during the civil war, which ended in 1990.

The Sunnis, Shiites and Christians are Lebanon’s largest groups, but Hezbollah, which the United States and neighboring Israel regard as a terrorist organization, has emerged as the country’s most powerful political and military force. Supported by Iran, Hezbollah wields an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets pointed at Israel and thousands of fighters who have been dispatched to battlefields in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.