When 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in Beirut’s port on August 4, 2020, it ripped by means of town, killing greater than 218 folks. Amongst them was three-year-old Alexandra Naggear.
5 years later, the investigation into who’s at fault for the blast has been delayed, and at occasions derailed, by political interference.
“A very powerful factor for us will not be for the choice, however for full justice to occur,” Tracy Naggear, Alexandra’s mom and a key activist advocating for the blast’s victims, instructed Al Jazeera by telephone. “And we received’t settle for a half-truth or half-justice.”
Because the fifth anniversary of the tragedy approaches, there may be some optimism that the judicial investigation is lastly transferring in the correct route after dealing with obstacles, principally from well-connected politicians refusing to reply questions and the previous public prosecutor blocking the investigation.
A call from the lead prosecutor is anticipated quickly, activists and authorized sources conversant in the matter instructed Al Jazeera. And whereas the street to justice continues to be lengthy, for the primary time, there’s a feeling that momentum is constructing.
Justice derailed
“You’ll be able to really feel a optimistic ambiance (this time),” lawyer Tania Daou-Alam instructed Al Jazeera.
Daou-Alam now lives in america, however is in Lebanon for the annual commemoration of the blast, which incorporates protests and a memorial.
A protester holds up an image of three-year-old Alexandra Naggear, who was killed within the Beirut port explosion (Kareem Chehayeb/Al Jazeera)
Her husband of 20 years, Jean-Frederic Alam, was killed by the blast, which was one of many largest non-nuclear explosions in fashionable historical past.
Daou-Alam can be one in all 9 victims suing the US-based firm TGS in a Texas courtroom for $250m, claiming it was concerned in chartering the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship that carried the ammonium nitrate into Beirut’s port in 2013.
She instructed Al Jazeera that the case is extra about “demanding accountability and entry to paperwork that will shed extra mild on the broader chain of accountability” than it’s about compensation.
The inhabitants of Beirut is used to dealing with crises with out authorities assist. Quite a few bombings and assassinations have occurred, with the state not often, if ever, holding anybody accountable.
Frustration and a way of abandonment by the state, the political system, and the people who profit from it already boiled over into an rebellion in October 2019, lower than a 12 months earlier than the blast.
Within the speedy aftermath of the explosion, residents cleaned up town themselves. Politicians who got here for picture alternatives had been chased out by offended residents, and mutual assist stuffed the hole left by the state.
The top of Lebanon’s 15-year civil struggle in 1990 set the tone for the impunity that has plagued the nation ever since. Consultants and historians say militia leaders traded their fatigues for fits, pardoned one another, awarded themselves ministries and started rerouting the nation’s assets to their private coffers.
Preliminary investigations discovered that the explosion was attributable to ammonium nitrate saved at Beirut port in improper situations for six years.
In addition they discovered that many high officers, together with then-President Michel Aoun, had been knowledgeable of the ammonium nitrate’s presence, however selected to not act.
Choose Fadi Sawan was chosen to guide the complete investigation in August 2020, however discovered himself sidelined after calling some notable politicians for questioning. Two ministers he charged with negligence requested that the case be transferred to a different decide.
A courtroom resolution, seen by Reuters, claimed that as a result of Sawan’s home had been broken within the blast, he wouldn’t be neutral.
Changing him in February 2021 was Choose Tarek Bitar. Like Sawan, Choose Bitar known as main political figures in for questioning and later issued arrest warrants for them. Amongst them are Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeiter, shut allies of Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, who nonetheless refuse to reply to Choose Bitar’s requests and declare they’ve parliamentary immunity.
Regardless of a lot fashionable assist, lots of Choose Bitar’s efforts had been impeded, with Lebanon’s Inside Safety Forces at occasions refusing to execute warrants and the previous Courtroom of Cassation public prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat, ordering his investigation halted.
A person stands close to graffiti on the broken port after the explosion. In Beirut on August 11, 2020 (Hannah McKay/Reuters)
A brand new period
In early 2025, Lebanon elected a brand new president, Joseph Aoun, and a brand new prime minister, Nawaf Salam.
Of their inaugural addresses, each spoke concerning the significance of discovering justice for the victims of the port explosion.
“The present justice minister appears decided to go all the way in which, and he has promised that the decide will now not face any hurdles and that the ministry will present all assist required,” Karim Emile Bitar, a Lebanese political analyst with no relation to the decide investigating the port explosion, instructed Al Jazeera.
Human Rights Watch reported in January 2025 that Choose Bitar had resumed his investigation, “after two years of being stymied by Lebanese authorities”.
On July 29, Salam issued a memorandum declaring August 4 a day of nationwide mourning. On July 17, Aoun met with the households of victims killed within the explosion.
“My dedication is evident: We should uncover the entire reality and maintain accountable those that induced this disaster,” Aoun mentioned.
Oueidat, the previous public prosecutor, was changed by Choose Jamal Hajjar in an performing capability in 2024, earlier than being confirmed as his successor in April 2025.
In March 2025, Hajjar reversed Oueidat’s choices and allowed Choose Bitar to proceed his investigation.
Authorized specialists and activists have been happy by the progress.
“Precise people implicated within the case are exhibiting as much as interrogations,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, instructed Al Jazeera. Amongst them are Tony Saliba, the previous director-general of State Safety, Abbas Ibrahim, former director-general of the Basic Directorate of Basic Safety, and Hassan Diab, prime minister on the time of the explosion.
However that is nonetheless not sufficient for these wanting justice to be served after 5 years of battles, activists and specialists notice.
“We’re asking for legal guidelines which might be capable of defend and assist the judiciary and the appointments of vacant decide (posts), so these items will present the federal government is on our aspect this time,” Daou-Alam mentioned.
Even with the brand new authorities pushing for accountability, some are nonetheless making an attempt to disrupt the method.
Hassan Khalil and Zeiter nonetheless refuse to seem earlier than Choose Bitar, and a struggle has emerged over the nation’s judicial independence.
“We will solely get justice if the judiciary acts independently in order that they’ll go after people and so the safety providers can act independently with out political interference,” Kaiss mentioned.
Protesters carry placards depicting the victims of the 2020 Beirut port blast throughout a march close to the Lebanese capital’s harbour on August 4, 2023, marking the third anniversary of the lethal explosion (Joseph Eid/AFP)
Time for accountability
The previous couple of years have been a turbulent interval of myriad crises for Lebanon.
A banking collapse robbed many individuals of their financial savings and left the nation in a historic financial disaster. Amid that and the COVID-19 pandemic got here the blast, and worldwide organisations and specialists maintain the Lebanese political institution accountable.
“The time has come to ship a sign to Lebanese public opinion that a few of these accountable, even when they’re in excessive positions, shall be held accountable,” political analyst Bitar mentioned.
“Accountability can be step one for the Lebanese in Lebanon and the diaspora to regain belief,” he mentioned, “and with out belief, Lebanon won’t be able to recuperate.”
Nonetheless, Bitar maintained, progress on the port blast file doesn’t imply each reply will come to the forefront.
“This crime was so large that, like many comparable crimes in different international locations, typically it takes years and many years, and we by no means discover out what actually occurred,” he mentioned.
Blast sufferer Tracy Naggear famous that “(our) struggle… is especially for our daughter, for Alexandra, after all”.
“However we’re (additionally) doing it for all of the victims and for our nation,” she mentioned. ‘(It’s) for each single person who has been touched by the 4th of August, from a easy scratch to a damaged window.”
