BEIRUT, Lebanon — The two new protesters smiled for the camera on a rooftop over downtown Beiru t, marking what felt like history with a selfie. The view was new to them: Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese of every sectarian affiliation danced and chanted in the street below, the little-seen Lebanese flag suddenly everywhere.

“The politicians told us that we hate each other, but we don’t,” said Fatima Hammoud, 23. “I’m from a specific sect. My friend is from a specific sect. But we’re all here together for our futures and our children’s futures. We don’t want to live the way our parents lived.”

Drawing as much as a quarter of the country’s four million people to the streets, Lebanon’s seven-day-old antigovernment revolt has outlasted government pushback, the beginnings of a sectarian backlash and bad weather. The largest and most diverse protests since the country’s independence, they are also the most ambitious: Fueled at first by fury over economic conditions and corruption, the crowds now demand nothing less than a new political system.