Saliba said that Diab cancelled his visit to the port after Abdallah had a call with an unknown person, who said that the issue was nothing serious.
Local newspapers Al-Akhbar and Aljoumhouria , as well as the local media outlet Megaphone , also reported that the night before the scheduled visit, at p. Human Rights Watch obtained a copy of this report. The State Security report concluded that there was negligence on the part of the Beirut port authority in securing hangar 12 and that no action was taken on the part of the official institutions to stave off the danger of the material being stolen or ignited.
He denied ever having been informed in any official correspondence about the matter while he was prime minister. Only former Prime Minister Najib Mikati responded prior to publication. There are disasters every day. They had been writing this report since January, when Naddaf started it. Why did it take eight months to send the report? There was a Higher Defense Council meeting on June 4. Diab said that the Ministry of Public Works received the report on August 3 and stamped it on August 4, and the Justice Minister received the report after the explosion, as she was out of the country at the time.
Diab attributed the delay in the ministries receiving the report to the public holidays and Covid lockdown during this period. Diab told Human Rights Watch that he was not aware of how explosive ammonium nitrate was until after the blast, when he found out from television. I gave it to my security advisor. The State Security report, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, was three pages long with six pages of annexes. In response to a letter from Human Rights Watch asking for clarification about this statement, Diab said that he did in fact read the report, and his office later said that his comment about the report being 30 pages was hyperbole.
If Diab did read the report prior to August 4, , he should have been aware of the explosive nature of the material prior to the explosion. Diab insisted that he acted as soon as he received the State Security report, while previous administrations and the security officials had knowledge since and failed to act. Former prime ministers knew… They are all represented on the Higher Defense Council. None of them mentioned it in any of the hundreds of meetings since President Aoun was also informed about the ammonium nitrate in hangar 12 via the July 20, State Security report and responded by tasking his security advisor to follow up.
On August 7, Aoun admitted that he became aware of the chemicals stored at the port in July, but claimed he was not responsible, saying:. I was not aware of the issue of explosives. When I got the news, it was too late. As the president of the Higher Defense Council, Aoun has the power to unilaterally convene a meeting of the council, but he never did so regarding the ammonium nitrate before the explosion. Human Rights Watch wrote to President Aoun on July 7, inquiring about why he did not put this issue on the agenda of the Higher Defense Council but did not receive a response prior to publication.
In an interview with local media, the secretary general of the Higher Defense Council, Major General Mahmoud al-Asmar, acknowledged receiving the July 20 report from State Security regarding the ammonium nitrate. I neither cheat, nor lie, nor commit treachery, nor disobey my superior… it is not true, it is not true, it is not true. In January , during a televised interview, al-Asmar disputed that he could have acted on the basis of the State Security report and stated that:.
Diab also told Human Rights Watch that there is no agenda for the Higher Defense Council meetings, but that attendees can bring up topics. He added that it is not within the prerogative of the secretary general of the Council to add items to the agenda for discussion. The Al-Jadeed news report also aired documentation sent by al-Asmar to various security agencies after the blast explosion, where al-Asmar warns about the dangers posed by other hazardous chemicals and about potential terrorist activities in the country.
On December 10, , investigative judge Fadi Sawan charged Diab and three former ministers— two of whom were also parliamentarians—with negligence that led to the blast. The president has not been charged for crimes related to the August 4, explosion and enjoys immunity from any prosecutions by the regular judiciary during his term, which is set to end in Forensic Architecture mapped bags of ammonium nitrate in bays 5,6,9, and 10 based on published photos and videos.
The workers were reportedly never instructed to take any security precautions and worked unsupervised all day on August 3 even though a port employee was assigned to accompany them during the maintenance work. At the end of the day the door they were working on was left unlocked so they could continue the repairs on August 4. Media reported that while port management ordered the workers to leave by p. According to an unnamed security official quoted in the media, sparks from the welding started the fire that trigged the ammonium nitrate to ignite.
The first video showing the fire at the port was uploaded to Twitter at p. Then at p. The judge is investigating several possible theories, including that the explosion was caused when welding sparks caused a fire in hangar 12, eventually igniting the ammonium nitrate.
Another is that the explosion may have been caused by an Israeli airstrike. A third theory under investigation by Bitar is that the explosion was an intentional act. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project also reported in August that three European intelligence sources told reporters the size of the explosion was equivalent to -1, tons of ammonium nitrate and that the amount that remained in the hangar at the time of the explosion may have been smaller than 2, tonnes.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed someone who saw the ammonium nitrate in hangar 12 in early and raised questions regarding whether there were still 2, bags of the material in the hangar, noting that the 5, square meter hangar should have been fuller if there were 2, bags, 1 square meter each, in the space. Whether the explosion was caused by an accidental fire sparked by maintenance work or an intentional fire or attack, culpability for the explosion still rests with those officials who knew the ammonium nitrate was being stored at the port in an unconscionable and dangerous manner and failed to do what was within their authority and under their responsibility to secure or remove it.
Even after it was clear that a fire had broken out in hangar 12, no warnings about the presence of the potentially explosive ammonium nitrate were ever given to the public or to the firefighters who responded to the scene and were tragically killed. Karlin Hitti lost three of her family members, all of whom were firefighters, in the first seconds of the explosion.
She said that the firefighters were not told about the ammonium nitrate in the hangar when they were sent to put out the fire. In the hours after the explosion, the state was noticeably absent from emergency relief efforts. Volunteers and passersby transported injured residents to nearby hospitals and removed debris from the streets.
There was not one single official body that was there on the ground to help us get to hospitals…perhaps my daughter would have survived. Mirna Habboush, who was driving past the port with her two-year-old son, lost her right eye in the explosion and severely damaged her right arm.
We were stepping on blood. You can't cancel it from my memories. You can't cancel it. The hour and a half I lived. An hour and a half of fear. An hour and a half of pain. The first month I couldn't accept myself. My son didn't come near me for two months. He was afraid of me…There's no life even though we're still alive, but we're dead inside. They killed us from the inside.
They slaughtered us from the inside. The blast, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, pulverized the port and damaged over half the city. The explosion also resulted in ammonia gas and nitrogen oxides being released into the air, potentially with toxins from other materials that may have also ignited as a result of the blast.
The domestic investigation into the August 4, explosion has failed to meet international standards. Human Rights Watch has documented a range of procedural and systemic flaws in the domestic investigation that render it incapable of credibly delivering justice, including immunity for high-level political officials, lack of respect for fair trial standards, and due process violations.
These problems are compounded by a structural lack of independence in the judiciary. On August 10, the Lebanese government referred the August 4, explosion file to the Judicial Council.
The Judicial Council is a special court whose decisions are not subject to appeal, violating fundamental fair trial safeguards. Referrals to the court are made on a discretionary basis via a cabinet decree, on the recommendation of the justice minister, relating to cases that are considered especially serious. The HJC, the body responsible for recommending the appointment of judges to specific courts, however, lacks independence.
Eight of its ten members are appointed by the executive branch — i. On August 13, the justice minister named Fadi Sawan the judicial investigator. Between August and February , Sawan brought charges though not a formal indictment against 37 people, 25 of whom were detained.
Despite the relatively low rank of the people detained, senior officials knew of the ammonium nitrate being stored in the port, had a responsibility to act to secure and remove it, and failed to do so. Activating this Supreme Council requires a two-thirds vote in parliament, and parliament has never activated this body.
Legal precedents also indicate that parliament does not have the exclusive right to indict ministers, and therefore the regular judiciary can try ministers as long as parliament has not done so.
In December , after parliament refused to initiate investigations into the role of the ministers that Sawan identified, Sawan surprised the public by charging Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab, and three former ministers, Ghazi Zeaiter, Ali Hassan Khalil, and Youssef Fenianos, with criminal negligence related to the blast.
One day later, the justice minister appointed Judge Tarek Bitar to replace Sawan. On July 2, , Bitar issued a series of requests to lift immunities that apply to parliamentarians and lawyers and allow for the prosecution of high-level officials.
In addition, Bitar requested that the Beirut and Tripoli Bar Associations allow him to prosecute Khalil and Zeaiter, both of whom are lawyers, as well as former Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos, also for the felony of homicide with probable intent and the misdemeanor of criminal negligence.
Bitar has not publicly addressed the issue of ministerial immunities. It may be the case that he is either adhering to the interpretation that states that that the crime of killing or causing death is not subject to immunity or relying on the legal precedent which states that parliament does not have the exclusive right to indict ministers.
Without parliament lifting the immunity of the sitting parliamentarians, and without permission to prosecute the high-level security officials, Bitar cannot move forward with prosecutions of these individuals. According to media reports, both the president and the prime minister have said the other has the authority to grant or deny permission to prosecute Saliba as a suspect. Human Rights Watch spoke with one detainee who was released, as well as the families and lawyers of six detained people.
Most have been held at the headquarters of the military police in Rihaniye since their arrest in August and September. Their lawyers said that their clients, as well as the others behind bars, are charged with the same litany of crimes despite their varying roles and responsibilities.
The crimes include homicide with probable intent i. Lawyers said that neither Sawan nor Bitar told them or their clients which charges applied to them or the evidence against each of the accused, citing the secrecy of the investigations. The lawyers said that they will only find out what evidence and specific charges apply to their clients at the end of the investigation, when the judge can either stay the prosecution or indict the defendants. Two guards are always in the room during their meetings with their clients, the lawyers said, and they noted that their clients had been detained 10 to 16 days before Sawan issued an arrest warrant.
They also said that Sawan rejected all their requests to release their clients on bail without any justification. Lebanon cannot invoke a provision of domestic law to justify violating an international treaty it has ratified. Source: Worldometer www. Medium-fertility variant. Main Page: Demographics of Lebanon. Life Expectancy.
Infant Mortality. Deaths under age 5. Notes The Lebanon Population Live counter shows a continuously updated estimate of the current population of Lebanon delivered by Worldometer's RTS algorithm , which processes data collected from the United Nations Population Division.
The Yearly Population Growth Rate chart plots the annual percentage changes in population registered on July 1 of each year, from to Definitions Year : as of July 1 of the year indicated. Hamze left us and tore our hearts out. The Eskandars are a family blighted by the intergenerational trauma that haunts many Lebanese. The patriarch, Hussein, lost his father in the year civil war between Christians and Muslims that ended in He disappeared at a Christian militia checkpoint.
Hussein served in the Lebanese army, which split along sectarian lines in the war. He still has shrapnel in his body from wounds he received during the conflict. In the s, he was kidnapped by a Palestinian armed faction and presumed killed.
His parents even held a funeral for him. He was eventually released and returned home. As the eldest of two sons with three older sisters, Hamze felt a responsibility to provide for his parents and siblings.
His dream, Salam says, was to get his parents out of their cramped apartment in an overcrowded, impoverished neighborhood of Beirut and to build them a house in their hometown of Hermel, a three-hour drive outside Beirut.
His death broke her. She died two months after him. She stopped everything. George was 32 when he died. He was supposed to get married that September. I lit a candle for him and told him that he melted my heart like this candle.
I swear, may they be deprived of their children the way they deprived me of mine. A year on, and the Maaloufs, like other families, are drowning in a deep pain. No wind. If I tell you, you won't believe me; there was a small whirlwind in front of our house.
It lasted a few minutes, and then it disappeared. Rita and Elias start to sob. I am certain of it! The hearts of other mothers are also hurting like you. I am not alone. That's what I tell myself to keep going. There are other hearts that feel the same pain, that share the same beat. That's what I tell myself. Follow her on Twitter raniaab. Lebanon country profile. Lebanon gets new government amid deepening crisis.
The mother in labour during Beirut blast. In pictures: Chaos and destruction in Beirut. On the ground at Beirut blast site. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Watch: People run for cover as gunfire sounds in Beirut. Image source, AFP. Residents fled as Shia and Christian militia fighters exchanged fire in the streets. Lebanese army soldiers and ambulances rushed to the scene after the gunfire erupted.
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