Lebanon’s Military Judiciary Takes Over Investigations Into Port Explosion

 A man is seen at the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
A man is seen at the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
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Lebanon’s Military Judiciary Takes Over Investigations Into Port Explosion

 A man is seen at the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
A man is seen at the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

The Military Court received the investigation case in the Beirut port explosion to conduct interrogations and issue arrest warrants against the suspects, until a forensic investigator is appointed over the matter and the case is returned to the Judicial Council.

In parallel, the State Prosecution gave instructions to the security forces to handover the detainees who are held pending investigation, to be referred to the Government Commissioner to the Military Court, Judge Fadi Akiki, to press charges against them and refer them to the Military Investigation Judge for questioning.

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the military court received the case and that Akiki began studying the preliminary investigations and would press charges against the detainees and all the individuals who would be found involved, whether premeditatedly or due to their negligence.

Judicial sources also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the military judiciary investigations were temporary until a judicial investigator is appointed after the resigned government decided to refer the case to the Judicial Council.

While sources believed that the referral to the Judicial Council was aimed at blocking the way to the demands for an international investigation committee, which is rejected by the President Michel Aoun and Hezbollah, other observers noted that the Council taking over the issue would mean that the case was a “threat to the country’s internal security a disruption of civil peace.”



Israel's Military Launches Wave of Deadly Raids Across West Bank

Israeli security forces gather at the site of an attack near the village of Funduq, in the occupied West Bank, on January 6, 2025. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
Israeli security forces gather at the site of an attack near the village of Funduq, in the occupied West Bank, on January 6, 2025. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
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Israel's Military Launches Wave of Deadly Raids Across West Bank

Israeli security forces gather at the site of an attack near the village of Funduq, in the occupied West Bank, on January 6, 2025. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
Israeli security forces gather at the site of an attack near the village of Funduq, in the occupied West Bank, on January 6, 2025. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

The Israeli military launched a wave of raids across the occupied West Bank overnight and into Tuesday, killing at least three Palestinians it said were “militants” after a deadly shooting attack the day before.

The army said it killed two Palestinian “militants” in an airstrike after they fired at troops in the area of Tamun, a village in the northern West Bank. It said another “militant” was killed in “close-quarters combat” in the nearby village of Taluza and that an Israeli soldier was severely wounded there.

The military said it arrested more than 20 suspected militants in different parts of the territory.

It said the overnight operations were not related to the shooting the day before, in which gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Israelis in the West Bank, killing two women in their 70s and a 35-year-old policeman before fleeing the scene.

Israeli forces were pursuing those attackers in separate operations.