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.”



UN Investigator Says Israel Still Conducting ‘Starvation Campaign’ in Gaza

Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
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UN Investigator Says Israel Still Conducting ‘Starvation Campaign’ in Gaza

Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)

The UN independent investigator on the right to food insisted Israel is still conducting “a starvation campaign” in Gaza, despite its delivery of over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food to the territory since it launched its military operation a year ago.

Michael Fakhri told reporters Friday that food is not calories and Palestinians have not gotten adequate food or calories.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, recently warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.

Fakhri said: “Based on a year-long starvation campaign and a 24-year blockade and siege, allowing a few more trucks to enter in now does not actually address the humanitarian needs.”

“But most importantly, what Israel is saying contradicts everything every humanitarian organization is saying now, and has been saying,” he said.

Fakhri said humanitarian officials call Israel’s rules on what is allowed into Gaza “opaque and absurd.”

Convoys that make it through are often shot at and targeted by Israeli forces despite coordination with Israeli authorities, he said. “And then even if those convoys get past that, civilians seeking aid have been shot at and killed several times.”

Israel’s UN Mission did not respond to a request for comment on Fakhri’s press conference.