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Families of Lebanese Blast Victims Plead for Outside Inquiry

The wife of Rami Kaaki, one of ten firefighters who were killed in the blast, tries to reach her husband's coffin during his funeral, at the firefighter headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 11, 2020. (AP)
The wife of Rami Kaaki, one of ten firefighters who were killed in the blast, tries to reach her husband's coffin during his funeral, at the firefighter headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 11, 2020. (AP)
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Families of Lebanese Blast Victims Plead for Outside Inquiry

The wife of Rami Kaaki, one of ten firefighters who were killed in the blast, tries to reach her husband's coffin during his funeral, at the firefighter headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 11, 2020. (AP)
The wife of Rami Kaaki, one of ten firefighters who were killed in the blast, tries to reach her husband's coffin during his funeral, at the firefighter headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 11, 2020. (AP)

Lebanon’s judicial investigation of the Beirut port explosion started with political wrangling over the naming of a lead investigator, military threats to jail leakers and doubts over whether a panel appointed along sectarian lines could be fully impartial.

So for many Lebanese, their greatest hope for credible answers about the blast that wrecked much of their capital may lie with outsiders. Families of the dead and survivors on Friday asked the UN Security Council for an international investigation. Others pin their hopes on the French forensic police who have joined the probe and FBI investigators are expected to take part.

“We are not lawyers or politicians, we are families and people, our appeal today is to the people of the international community," said Paul Najjar, a survivor of the explosion. “Is it acceptable today that people would find their homes shattered, their families killed, their hopes and their dreams killed as well, with no justice, in all impunity?”

French teams have pressed ahead at their work, sending divers into the underwater crater, taking explosives samples and preparing recommendations for both French and Lebanese magistrates. Among the French judicial police on the case are men and women who responded after the 2004 tsunami in Japan, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the November 2015 and Bastille Day 2016 terror attacks in France.

The Beirut explosion lies at the crossroads of a disastrous accident and a crime scene. It still was not known what sparked the fire that ignited nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that were stored for years in Beirut’s port next to densely populated residential areas. Documents have emerged that show the country’s top leadership and security officials were aware of the stockpile.

Search and rescue crews flew in from around the world in the immediate aftermath and found themselves looking at a scene that was both familiar and yet strangely alien.

“In an earthquake, it’s easier because we can understand ... how it moves. But in this case, we didn’t have enough elements to understand what happened,” said Alberto Boanini, a member of the Italian rescue team. The team has seen its share of quakes and forest fires, but nothing quite like the port in Beirut, where he said it was hard to fathom what could level it so completely.

Many Lebanese want the probe taken out of the hands of their own government, having learned from past experience that the long-entrenched political factions, notorious for corruption, won’t allow any results damaging to their leadership to come to light. The explosion killed more than 175 people, injured at least 6,000 and left tens of thousands homeless.

Paris sent judicial police because a French architect was among the dead, and French law gives jurisdiction for an investigation if a citizen dies abroad under questionable circumstances.

But the French investigators work only at the invitation of the Lebanese, and their orders are confidential.

French officials say they have the access they need but will not say whether their inquiry extends to questioning witnesses or requesting documents. They hand over their findings to the Lebanese, but keep a mirror copy for a French inquiry. The FBI is also joining at Lebanese authorities’ invitation.

Top Lebanese officials, including President Michel Aoun, have rejected calls for an independent probe, describing it as “a waste of time” and suggesting it would be politicized. Nonetheless, Nada Abdelsater-Abusamra, a lawyer representing victims, said a letter was submitted to the UN Security Council asking for an international investigation.

In its last decision before resigning under pressure, six days after the explosion, Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government referred the port explosion case to the Higher Judicial Council, Lebanon’s highest justice authority, to carry out the investigation.

An argument then ensued with the outgoing justice minister over the investigation’s lead judge. After public wrangling, they compromised on Judge Fadi Sawwan, a former military investigating judge.

The Council itself is made up of 10 people, eight of whom are appointed according to the interests of the various political factions and religious sects in line with Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system.

The authorities have so far arrested at least 19 people, including the head of the Customs Department and his predecessor, as well as the head of the port.

Lebanese say they want to see investigations into top officials who knew about the ammonium nitrate.

“They will blame the small guys while the ones who are really responsible will get away with their crime, that’s what will happen,” said Jad, a 38-year-old computer engineer who declined to give his full name in line with his company’s regulations not to discuss politics.

“If this time there is no credible, serious investigation that will lead to the punishment of everyone responsible for this disaster, it is goodbye Lebanon. No one will ever want to live in this country again,” he said, standing on a bridge overlooking the decimated port.

Lebanese forensics expert Omar Nachabe said the public infighting about the name of the lead investigator is a bad sign that casts doubt on the credibility of any local investigation.

“If I am a Lebanese citizen, my capital (city) has been destroyed. I want a quick and serious investigation, yet the government has not shown until now that it is up to the task,” he told the local channel LBCI.

Explosions have marked a grim timeline in Lebanon’s modern history and have killed presidents, prime ministers and countless journalists and activists during the country’s 1975-90 civil war and beyond.

Almost none of the perpetrators were ever arrested or tried, and the truth was invariably buried. Lebanese had high hopes that the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 killing of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri would be a chance to end impunity in Lebanon. But it took 15 years and was marred by doubts, politics and more deaths. The tribunal is to issue verdicts Tuesday.

International involvement in the investigation might bring some truth, but bringing justice is more complicated. Dov Jacobs, an international legal scholar based in the Netherlands, said the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine six years ago might be the closest analogy.

In that case, international experts had full access to the site, and international prosecutors charged three Russians and a Ukrainian with involvement in bringing down the plane and the murder of all on board. The men are on trial in a Dutch court in absentia, since none have been extradited.

But in Lebanon, Jacobs said, “the investigation itself is a tool of political influence. It’s one of those frustrating moments where immediate calls for justice are faced with a wall which is the political reality on the ground.”

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Fires Have Become the Most Visible Sign of the Conflict Heating Up on the Lebanon-Israel Border

FILE - Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode over Dahaira, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE - Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode over Dahaira, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
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Fires Have Become the Most Visible Sign of the Conflict Heating Up on the Lebanon-Israel Border

FILE - Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode over Dahaira, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE - Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode over Dahaira, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

With cease-fire talks faltering in Gaza and no clear offramp for the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border, the daily exchanges of strikes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have sparked fires that are tearing through forests and farmland on both sides of the frontline.
The blazes — exacerbated by supply shortages and security concerns — have consumed thousands of hectares of land in southern Lebanon and northern Israel, becoming one of the most visible signs of the escalating conflict, The Associated Press said.
There is an increasingly real possibility of a full-scale war — one that would have catastrophic consequences for people on both sides of the border. Some fear the fires sparked by a larger conflict would also cause irreversible damage to the land.
Charred remains in Lebanon and in Israel. Images of fires sparked by Hezbollah's rockets have driven public outrage and spurred Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to declare last month that it is “time for all of Lebanon to burn.”
Much of it was already burning.
Fires in Lebanon began in late April — earlier than the usual fire season — and have torn through the largely rural areas along the border.
The town of Shebaa, tucked in the mountains on Lebanon’s southeastern edge, has little Hezbollah presence, and the town hasn't been targeted as frequently as other border villages. But the sounds of shelling still boom regularly, and in the mountains above it, formerly oak-lined ridges are charred and bare.
In a cherry orchard on the outskirts of town, clumps of fruit hang among browned leaves after a fire sparked by an Israeli strike tore through. Firefighters and local men — some using their shirts to beat out flames — stopped the blaze from reaching houses and UN peacekeeper center nearby.
“Grass will come back next year, but the trees are gone,” said Moussa Saab, whose family owns the orchard. “We’ll have to get saplings and plant them, and you need five or seven years before you can start harvesting.”
Saab refuses to leave with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. They can't afford to live elsewhere, and they fear not being able to return, as happened to his parents when they left the disputed Shebaa Farms area.
In Israel, the slopes of Mount Meron, Israel’s second-highest mountain and home to an air base, were long covered in native oak trees, a dense grove providing shelter to wild pigs, gazelles, and rare species of flowers and fauna.
Now the green slopes are interrupted by three new burn scars — the largest a few hundred square meters — remnants of a Hezbollah explosive drone shot down a few weeks ago. Park rangers worry that devastation has just begun.
“The damage this year is worse a dozen times over this year,” said Shai Koren, of the northern district for Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority.
Looking over the slopes of Meron, Koren said he doesn’t expect this forest to survive the summer: “You can take a before and after picture.”
Numbers and weapons
Since the war began, the Israeli military has tracked 5,450 launches toward northern Israel. According to Israeli think tank the Alma Research and Education Center, most early launches were short-range anti-tank missiles, but Hezbollah's drone usage has increased.
In Lebanon, officials and human rights groups accuse Israel of firing white phosphorus incendiary shells at residential areas, in addition to regular artillery shelling and airstrikes.
The Israeli military says it uses white phosphorus only as a smokescreen, not to target populated areas. But even in open areas, the shells can spark fast-spreading fires.
The border clashes began Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and sparked the war in Gaza. There, more than 37,000 have been killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Hezbollah began launching rockets into northern Israel to open what it calls a “support front” for Hamas, to pull Israeli forces away from Gaza.
Israel responded, and attacks spread across the border region. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 450 people — mostly fighters, but also 80-plus civilians and noncombatants — have been killed.
Exchanges have intensified since early May, when Israel launched its incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. That coincided with the beginning of the hot, dry wildfire season.
Since May, Hezbollah strikes have resulted in 8,700 hectares (about 21,500 acres) burned in northern Israel, according to Israel's Nature and Parks Authority.
Eli Mor, of Israel’s Fire and Rescue, said drones, which are much more accurate than rockets, often “come one after another, the first one with a camera and the second one will shoot.”
“Every launch is a real threat,” Mor added.
In southern Lebanon, about 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) have burned due to Israeli strikes, said George Mitri, of the Land and Natural Resources program at the University of Balamand. In the two years before, he said, Lebanon's total area burned annually was 500 to 600 hectares (1,200 to 1,500 acres).
Fire response Security concerns hamper the response to a fire's first crucial hours. Firefighting planes are largely grounded over fears they'll be shot down. On the ground, firefighters often can't move without army escorts.
“If we lose half an hour or an hour, it might take us an extra day or two days to get the fire under control,” said Mohammad Saadeh, head of the Shebaa civil defense station. The station responded to 27 fires in three weeks last month — nearly as many as a normal year.
On the border's other side, Moran Arinovsky used to be a chef and is now deputy commander of the emergency squad at Kibbutz Manara. With about 10 others, he's fought more than 20 fires in the past two months.
Mor, of Israel’s Fire and Rescue, said firefighters often must triage.
“Sometimes we have to give up on open areas that are not endangering people or towns,” Mor said.
The border areas are largely depopulated. Israel's government evacuated a 4-kilometer strip early in the war, leaving only soldiers and emergency personnel. In Lebanon, there's no formal evacuation order, but large swathes have become virtually uninhabitable.
Some 95,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 people in Israel have been displaced for nine months.
Kibbutz Sde Nehemia didn't evacuate, and Efrat Eldan Schechter said some days she watches helplessly as plumes of smoke grow closer to home.
“There's a psychological impact, the knowledge and feeling that we’re alone,” she said, because firefighters can't access certain areas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that as fighting in Gaza winds down, Israel will send more troops to its northern border. That could open a new front and raise the risk of more destructive fires.