Lebanon marks four years since devastating Beirut port blast as war fears loom
Several marches converge on area to commemorate over 220 victims and demand justice amid stalled probe that still has not attributed responsibility
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon on Sunday marked four years since a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port killed more than 220 people, with fears of all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group hanging heavy over the grim commemoration.
Several marches were to converge on the port to remember the victims and demand justice.
Nobody has been held responsible for the August 4, 2020, disaster — one of history’s biggest non-nuclear explosions — which also injured at least 6,500 people and devastated swaths of the capital.
Authorities said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where a stockpile of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been haphazardly stored for years. Ammonium nitrate can be used to make explosives, and according to an unsourced report on Israel’s Channel 13 news Hezbollah may have planned to use the stockpile against Israel.
An investigation has stalled, mired in legal and political wrangling.
“The complete lack of accountability for such a manmade disaster is staggering,” United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement on Saturday.
“One would expect the concerned authorities to work tirelessly to lift all barriers… but the opposite is happening,” she said, calling for “an impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation to deliver truth, justice, and accountability.”
In December 2020, lead investigator Fadi Sawan charged former prime minister Hassan Diab and three ex-ministers with negligence, but as political pressure mounted, he was removed from the case.
His successor, Tarek Bitar, unsuccessfully asked lawmakers to lift parliamentary immunity for MPs who were formerly cabinet ministers.
In December 2021, Bitar suspended his probe after a barrage of lawsuits, while the powerful Hezbollah group, which is represented in government, has accused him of bias and demanded his dismissal.
But in January last year, he resumed investigations, charging eight new suspects including high-level security officials and Lebanon’s top prosecutor, who in turn charged Bitar with “usurping power” and ordered the release of detainees in the case.
The process has since stalled again.
A judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Bitar would “resume his proceedings, starting next week” and intends to finish “the investigation and issue his indictment decision… by the end of the year.”
Bitar will set dates for questioning defendants who have not yet appeared before him, according to the official.
If the public prosecutor’s office or other relevant judicial officials fail to cooperate, Bitar “will issue arrest warrants in absentia” for the defendants, the official added.
Activists have called for a UN fact-finding mission into the blast, but Lebanese officials have repeatedly rejected the demand.
Prospects of further disaster loom over this year’s anniversary, with Hamas ally terror group Hezbollah and the Israeli army trading cross-border fire since the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, triggering the Gaza war and fears that an all-out conflict could engulf Lebanon.
Last week, an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr, and the terror group’s head, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed revenge.
