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Former Public Works Minister to Be Questioned over Beirut Port Blast

A general view shows the damaged grain silo following the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon. (Reuters)
A general view shows the damaged grain silo following the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon. (Reuters)
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Former Public Works Minister to Be Questioned over Beirut Port Blast

A general view shows the damaged grain silo following the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon. (Reuters)
A general view shows the damaged grain silo following the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon. (Reuters)

The judicial investigator probing the Beirut port explosion, Judge Fadi Sawwan summoned former public works minister Youssef Fenianos and the port’s former customs chief Moussa Hazimeh to appear for interrogation next Thursday, Lebanon’s National News Agency said on Monday.

Six months after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record, which injured thousands of people, victims are still awaiting the result of the investigation, although Lebanese leaders had promised it would come within days.

Sawwan had already called former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil, along with former public works ministers Ghazi Zoaiter and Fenianos for questioning over the blast.

However, Zoaiter and Hassan Khalil refused to attend the questioning, saying that as current members of parliament, they enjoy immunity.

The highly explosive chemicals that triggered the Beirut port explosion last August 4 were stored for years in poor conditions at the port, which lies in the heart of the capital.

Since August, Sawwan has brought charges against 37 people.

But many Lebanese remain skeptical that senior politicians will be held to account, fearing the truth will never emerge from a system riven by corruption.

Lebanese authorities have failed in the past six months to deliver any justice for the catastrophic explosion, Human Rights Watch said in a report released early this month.

Meanwhile, lawyers of Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians killed in the explosion are following up on a letter they presented last week to Sawwan.

The four lawyers had filed a complaint against the owner Savaro, of a British-registered company possibly linked to the blast, and sole director at Companies House, Marina Psyllou, and the company's former director Greta Bieliene, requesting they be questioned to reveal the real owners of the company.

Last month, a Lebanese lawyers’ association asked British authorities to halt the voluntary liquidation of Savaro.

In the Jan. 25 letter to British lawmaker Margaret Hodge, the Beirut Bar Association (BBA) said it had asked the UK corporate registry, Companies House, to prevent, Savaro Ltd., which it described as an “indicted entity”, from being wound up in order to allow investigations into its possible role in the blast to continue.

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Arab World

Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency Says 3 Killed in Israeli Strike

A child stands in a destroyed building overlooking makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 18, 2026. (AFP)
A child stands in a destroyed building overlooking makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 18, 2026. (AFP)
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Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency Says 3 Killed in Israeli Strike

A child stands in a destroyed building overlooking makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 18, 2026. (AFP)
A child stands in a destroyed building overlooking makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 18, 2026. (AFP)

Gaza's civil defense agency said Tuesday that an Israeli strike killed three people in the Palestinian territory overnight, with Israeli warplanes seen soaring over the region after the assault, according to AFP journalists.

Despite an October 10 ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by daily violence as both the Israeli military and Hamas accuse one another of breaching the truce.

"Three people were killed as a result of an Israeli strike at midnight in the vicinity of the Al-Zaqzouq junction in Al-Amal neighborhood, northwest of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip," spokesman for Gaza's civil defense agency Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

Israel and Hamas regularly accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, which came into effect after two years of war triggered by Hamas' October 7, 2023 cross-border attack.

More than 770 Palestinians have been killed since the truce began, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli army has reported five soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of the truce.

Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

Arab World

UN Security Council Condemns Killing of French Peacekeeper in Lebanon

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Diodato Abagnara pays tribute to Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio, who was killed while clearing a road in southern Lebanon in an attack that UNIFIL peacekeepers and French officials said was likely carried out by Hezbollah, at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, April 19, 2026. (Haidar Fahs/UNIFIL/Handout via Reuters)
UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Diodato Abagnara pays tribute to Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio, who was killed while clearing a road in southern Lebanon in an attack that UNIFIL peacekeepers and French officials said was likely carried out by Hezbollah, at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, April 19, 2026. (Haidar Fahs/UNIFIL/Handout via Reuters)
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UN Security Council Condemns Killing of French Peacekeeper in Lebanon

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Diodato Abagnara pays tribute to Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio, who was killed while clearing a road in southern Lebanon in an attack that UNIFIL peacekeepers and French officials said was likely carried out by Hezbollah, at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, April 19, 2026. (Haidar Fahs/UNIFIL/Handout via Reuters)
UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Diodato Abagnara pays tribute to Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio, who was killed while clearing a road in southern Lebanon in an attack that UNIFIL peacekeepers and French officials said was likely carried out by Hezbollah, at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, April 19, 2026. (Haidar Fahs/UNIFIL/Handout via Reuters)

The UN Security Council on Monday condemned the recent killing of a French peacekeeper in Lebanon, whose death France has blamed on Hezbollah.

The Frenchman was killed and three others wounded when their unit was ambushed on Saturday as it headed to a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) outpost cut off from the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attack...(and) reaffirmed their full support for UNIFIL" a statement from the UN body said.

Arab World

Over $71 Bn Needed Over Next Decade to Rebuild Gaza, Say UN and EU

Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
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Over $71 Bn Needed Over Next Decade to Rebuild Gaza, Say UN and EU

Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)

More than $71 billion will be needed over the next decade for recovery and reconstruction in war-ravaged Gaza, according to an EU-UN assessment published Monday.

In their final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA), the United Nations and the European Union said that more than two years of war in the Palestinian territory "has led to unprecedented loss of life and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis".

"Recovery and reconstruction needs are estimated at around $71.4 billion," said the assessment, developed in coordination with the World Bank.

Much of Gaza -- including schools, hospitals and other civic infrastructure -- has been reduced to rubble by a withering Israeli military offensive following the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

The final assessment determined that $26.3 billion would be required in the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery.

"Physical infrastructure damages are estimated at $35.2 billion, with economic and social losses amounting to $22.7 billion," a joint statement said.

Gaza is under a fragile ceasefire agreed last October, which followed two years of devastating conflict sparked by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures tallied by AFP. Palestinian fighters also abducted 251 hostages.

The retaliatory Israeli military campaign has killed more than 72,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry whose figures the UN considers reliable.

- 'Immense scale of need' -

According to the RDNA, some 371,888 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, more than 50 percent of hospitals in the territory are non-functional and nearly all schools have been destroyed or damaged.

At the same time, 1.9 million people -- nearly Gaza's entire population -- have been displaced, often multiple times, and more than 60 percent of the population had lost their homes, the assessment found.

Gaza's economy has contracted by 84 percent, it said.

"The scale and extent of deprivation across living conditions, livelihoods/income, food security, gender equality, and social inclusion, have pushed back human development in the Gaza Strip by 77 years," the assessment said.

The UN and the EU stressed that "given the immense scale of need, recovery efforts must run in parallel with humanitarian action" in Gaza, ensuring a "transition from emergency relief toward reconstruction at scale".

They insisted that the recovery and reconstruction needed to be "Palestinian-led", and incorporate approaches that actively support the transfer of governance to the Palestinian Authority, in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2803.

That resolution, which was adopted last November, welcomed the creation of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace to support Gaza's reconstruction.

The UN and the EU also emphasised that "a set of enabling conditions" were needed for the resolution to be implemented effectively on the ground.

They included in particular "a sustained ceasefire and adequate security", as well as "unimpeded humanitarian access and immediate restoration of essential services," and "free movement of people, goods, and reconstruction materials, within and between Gaza and the West Bank".

Without such conditions, they warned, "neither recovery nor reconstruction can succeed".