Hope for Justice in 2020 Beirut Port Explosion Fades

Paul Naggear, stands next a portrait of his daughter Alexandra, who was killed in 2020 massive blast at Beirut's seaport, during an interview in the town of Beit Mery in the hills east of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Paul Naggear, stands next a portrait of his daughter Alexandra, who was killed in 2020 massive blast at Beirut's seaport, during an interview in the town of Beit Mery in the hills east of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Hope for Justice in 2020 Beirut Port Explosion Fades

Paul Naggear, stands next a portrait of his daughter Alexandra, who was killed in 2020 massive blast at Beirut's seaport, during an interview in the town of Beit Mery in the hills east of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Paul Naggear, stands next a portrait of his daughter Alexandra, who was killed in 2020 massive blast at Beirut's seaport, during an interview in the town of Beit Mery in the hills east of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

It’s been two years since his 3-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was killed in a massive explosion at Beirut’s port — and Paul Naggear has lost hope that outrage over the disaster will bring justice and force change in Lebanon.

The investigation into one of the world's biggest non-nuclear explosions has been blocked for months by Lebanon’s political powers. Many blame the Lebanese government's longtime corruption and mismanagement for the tragedy, but the elite's decades-old lock on power has ensured they are untouchable.
In fact, some of those charged in the probe were re-elected to parliament earlier this year.

Even as the wrecked silos at the port have been burning for weeks — a fire ignited by the fermenting grains still inside them — authorities seemed to have given up on trying to put out the blaze. A section of the silos collapsed Sunday in a huge cloud of dust.

“It has been two years and nothing’s happened,” Naggear, said of the Aug. 4, 2020 disaster, when hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, a material used in fertilizers, detonated at the port. "It’s as if my daughter was just hit by a car.”

The blast caused a pressure wave that shattered everything in its path across the capital.

Naggear, his wife, Tracy Awad, and little Alexandra were in their apartment overlooking the port when the massive force sent glass, furniture and other debris flying. Naggear and his wife suffered cuts and bruises. Alexandra, or Lexou, as they called her, was severely injured and died in the hospital.

She was the second-youngest victim of the explosion, which killed more than 215 people and injured more than 6,000.

It later emerged that the ammonium nitrate had been shipped to Lebanon in 2013 and stored improperly at a port warehouse ever since. Senior political and security officials knew of its presence but did nothing.

Lebanon’s factional political leaders, who have divvied up power among themselves for decades, closed ranks to thwart any accountability.

Tarek Bitar, the judge leading the investigation, charged four former senior government officials with intentional killing and negligence that led to the deaths of dozens of people. He also charged several top security officials in the case.

But his work has been blocked for eight months pending a Court of Cassation ruling after three former Cabinet ministers filed legal challenges. The court can’t rule until a number of vacancies caused by judges retiring are filled. The appointments, signed by the justice minister, are still awaiting approval from the finance minister, an ally of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Judicial officials with knowledge of Bitar’s investigation told The Associated Press it was in advanced stages of answering key questions — including who owned the nitrates, how they entered the port and how the explosion happened. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

Bitar is the second judge to take the case. The first judge was forced out after complaints were raised against him by two Cabinet ministers, and if the same happens to Bitar it would likely be the final blow to the investigation.

The lack of justice compounds the pain of relatives and friends of blast victims. They feel let down and abandoned, not only by the government but by public apathy as the months and years have dragged on.

Initially after the explosion, there were large protests and sit-ins demanding justice. It raised hopes that Lebanon’s politicians might be held accountable.

But public fervor waned as Lebanese became absorbed with surviving the country’s economic collapse. Also, deadly gun battles erupted last year between Hezbollah supporters protesting against Bitar and members of a Christian faction, raising fears that pressing the investigation could push Lebanon into factional conflict.

Now only a handful of people show up at protests and sit-ins organized by relatives of the victims.

Families remain wracked by grief.

For Muhieddine Ladkani, whose father, Mohammed, was killed, time has stood still.

When they first heard explosions coming from the port, his father took the family into their apartment's entrance hall, believing it would be safe since there were no windows. But the blast tore the front door off its hinges and sent a cupboard slamming into the elder Ladkani. He was in a coma for weeks with a brain hemorrhage. He died 31 days later.

Ladkani, a 29-year-old law student, said his family still can’t talk about that day.

“We still cannot remember, and we cannot gather as a family,” he said. “My brothers and uncles have my father’s photos as their profile photo. I don’t. Whenever I remember my father, I collapse.”

“It is something that I don’t want to believe. I can’t live with it,” Ladkani said. Those who voted for the politicians charged in the disaster are also responsible for his father's death, he added.

“The ink on the fingers of the voters who voted for them is not ink but the blood of the victims,” Ladkani said.

One of the charged and reelected politicians, former public works minister Ghazi Zeiter, told the AP he had the right to run for parliament again because there is no court verdict against him. He said Bitar has no right to charge him because legislators and ministers have a special court where they are usually tried.

Amid the deadlock, some victims' families are turning to courts outside Lebanon.

In mid-July, families filed a $250 million lawsuit against an American-Norwegian firm, TGS, suspected of involvement in bringing the explosive material to the port. TGS has denied any wrongdoing.

Naggear said his family, two others and the Bar Association have filed a lawsuit in Britain against the London-registered chemical trading company, Savaro Ltd., which investigative journalists in Lebanon say chartered the shipment, intending to take the nitrates from Georgia to an explosives firm in Mozambique.

Naggear said he is losing hope.

He and his wife, who is a dual Lebanese-Canadian citizen, had thought about leaving Lebanon after the blast. But the large public protests in the immediate aftermath gave them hope that change was possible.

But after this year's parliamentary election results, they are again seriously considering leaving.

Still, they vow to continue working for justice. At a recent sit-in, they showed up with their 4-month-old baby, Axel.

“They are trying to make us forget ... but we will not stop, for (Alexandra’s) sake until we reach the truth and justice,” Naggear said.

The Naggears have repaired their apartment, but they haven’t stayed there since Axel’s birth, fearing it was still not safe.

The fire burning in the ruins of the grain silos only feeds the sense of danger. A northern section of the structure collapsed on Sunday, and experts say more parts are at risk of falling. At night, orange flames can be seen licking at the base of the northern silo, glowing eerily in the darkness.



From 1948 to Now, a Palestinian Woman in Gaza Recounts a Life of Displacement 

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
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From 1948 to Now, a Palestinian Woman in Gaza Recounts a Life of Displacement 

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

As a 4-year-old, Ghalia Abu Moteir was driven to live in a tent in Khan Younis after her family fled their home in what’s now Israel, escaping advancing Israeli forces. Seventy-seven years later, she is now back in a tent under the bombardment of Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

On Thursday, Palestinians across the Middle East commemorated the anniversary of the “Nakba” -- Arabic for “the Catastrophe” -- when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.

Abu Moteir’s life traces the arc of Palestinians’ exile and displacement from that war to the current one. Israel’s 19-month-old campaign has flattened much of Gaza, killed more than 53,000 people, driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million from their homes and threatens to push them into famine.

“Today we’re in a bigger Nakba than the Nakba that we saw before,” the 81-year-old Abu Moteir said, speaking outside the tent where she lives with her surviving sons and daughters and 45 grandchildren.

“Our whole life is terror, terror. Day and night, there’s missiles and warplanes overhead. We’re not living. If we were dead, it would be more merciful,” she said.

Palestinians fear that Israel’s ultimate goal is to drive them from the Gaza Strip completely. Israel says its campaign aims to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which gunmen killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted around 250 others.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that after Israel defeats Hamas, it will continue to control Gaza and will encourage Palestinians to leave “voluntarily.”

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

From tent city to tent city

The Gaza Strip was born out of the Nakba. Some 200,000 of the 1948 refugees were driven into the small coastal area, and more than 70% of Gaza’s current population are their descendants. Gaza’s borders were set in an armistice between Israel and Egypt, which along with other Arab countries had attacked after Israel declared its independence.

Abu Moteir doesn’t remember much from her home village, Wad Hunayn, a small hamlet thick with citrus groves just southeast of Tel Aviv. Her parents fled with her and her three brothers as the nascent forces of Israel moved into the area, fighting local Palestinian groups and expelling some communities.

“We left only with the clothes we had on us, no ID, no nothing,” Abu Moteir said. She remembers walking along the Mediterranean coast amid gunfire. Her father, she said, put the children behind him, trying to protect them.

They walked 75 kilometers (45 miles) to Khan Younis, where they settled in a tent city that sprang up to house thousands of refugees. There, UNRWA, a new UN agency created to care for them – temporarily, it was thought at the time – provided food and supplies, while the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian rule.

After two years in a tent, her family moved further south to Rafah and built a home. Abu Moteir’s father died of illness in the early 1950s. When Israeli forces stormed through Gaza to invade Egypt’s Sinai in 1956, the family fled again, to central Gaza, before returning to Rafah. In the years after the 1967 Middle East War, when Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank, Abu Moteir’s mother and brothers left for Jordan.

Abu Moteir, by that time married with children, stayed behind.

“I witnessed all the wars,” she said. “But not one is like this war.”

A year ago, her family fled Rafah as Israeli troops invaded the city. They now live in the sprawling tent city of Muwasi on the coast outside Khan Younis. An airstrike killed one of her sons, leaving behind three daughters, a son and his pregnant wife, who has since given birth. Three of Abu Moteir’s grandchildren have also been killed.

Throughout the war, UNRWA has led a massive aid effort by humanitarian groups to keep Palestinians alive. But for the past 10 weeks, Israel has barred all food, fuel, medicines and other supplies from entering Gaza, saying it aims to force Hamas to release 58 remaining hostages, fewer than half believed alive.

Israel also says Hamas has been siphoning off aid in large quantities, a claim the UN denies. Israel has banned UNRWA, saying it has been infiltrated by Hamas, which the agency denies.

Hunger and malnutrition in the territory have spiraled as food stocks run out.

“Here in Muwasi, there’s no food or water,” said Abu Moteir. “The planes strike us. Our children are thrown (dead) in front of us.”

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

Devastation tests Palestinians' will to stay

Generations in Gaza since 1948 have been raised on the idea of “sumoud,” Arabic for “resilience,” the need to stand strong for their land and their right to return to their old homes inside Israel. Israel has refused to allow refugees back, saying a mass return would leave the country without a Jewish majority.

While most Palestinians say they don’t want to leave Gaza, the destruction wreaked by Israeli forces is shaking that resilience among some.

“I understand that ... There is no choice here. To stay alive, you’d have to leave Gaza,” said Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network in Gaza, though he said he would never leave.

He dismissed Netanyahu’s claims that any migration would be voluntary. “Israel made Gaza not suitable for living for decades ahead,” he said.

Noor Abu Mariam, a 21-year-old in Gaza City, grew up knowing the story of her grandparents, who were expelled by Israeli forces from their town outside the present-day Israeli city of Ashkelon in 1948.

Her family was forced to flee their home in Gaza City early in the war. They returned during a two-month ceasefire earlier this year. Their area is now under Israeli evacuation orders, and they fear they will be forced to move again.

Her family is thinking of leaving if the border opens, Abu Mariam said.

“I could be resilient if there were life necessities available like food and clean water and houses,” she said. “Starvation is what will force us to migrate.”

Kheloud al-Laham, a 23-year-old sheltering in Deir al-Balah, said she was “adamant” about staying.

“It’s the land of our fathers and our grandfathers for thousands of years,” she said. “It was invaded and occupied over the course of centuries, so is it reasonable to leave it that easily?”

“What do we return to?” Abu Moteir remembers the few times she was able to leave Gaza over the decades of Israeli occupation.

Once, she went on a group visit to Jerusalem. As their bus passed through Israel, the driver called out the names of the erased Palestinian towns they passed – Isdud, near what’s now the Israeli city of Ashdod; Majdal, now Ashkelon.

They passed not far from where Wadi Hunayn once stood. “But we didn’t get off the bus,” she said.

She knows Palestinians who worked in the Israeli town of Ness Ziona, which stands on what had been Wadi Hunayn. They told her nothing is left of the Palestinian town but one or two houses and a mosque, since converted to a synagogue.

She used to dream of returning to Wadi Hunayn. Now she just wants to go back to Rafah.

But most of Rafah has been leveled, including her family home, she said.

“What do we return to? To the rubble?”