On an overpass that skirts Beirut’s port stands a statue of an emigrant. Raised in 2002 by Mexicans of Lebanese descent, with his back to the city, he looks out towards the sea.
It stands as a testament to the Lebanese, who in years of strife have looked beyond Lebanon for a better future.
For the last five years, the statue has surveyed the battered landscape of Beirut’s port – a bitter reminder of the systemic failings of the Lebanese system and the continued suffering of its people.
On 4 August 2020, a fire at the Port of Beirut ignited 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly flammable chemical that had been improperly stored for years. The resulting explosion devastated the city, killing 220 people, injuring thousands, and obliterating large swathes of Beirut.
Under the shadow of the emigrant, the families and victims of the explosion gather on the fourth day of every month, as they have done for more than four years.
Holding pictures of their lost loved ones, they take turns speaking into a megaphone, denouncing the negligence and ineffectiveness of their government. The speeches are interrupted only by the occasional honk of solidarity from passing traffic.
A small gaggle of journalists gather around them; these protest vigils have become a regular, slightly mundane assignment on the local beat. Yet, despite the years dragging on, those campaigning for justice remain unperturbed. Their voices still clamour with the same emotion in their impassioned demands for justice.
Until now, there has been none, and no one has been held accountable for the disaster. However, in recent weeks, a glimmer of hope returned following the election of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who have signalled their desire to secure justice for the victims of the explosion. As a result, the investigative Judge Tarek Bitar reopened his investigation into the explosion on Friday, charging 10 new suspects in his proceedings.
Bitar’s investigation stalled more than two years ago due to resistance from the political establishment. A protest, organised by Hezbollah and Amal, against his investigation turned deadly in 2021 when seven were killed in clashes between Hezbollah and masked gunmen. Simultaneously, those investigated by Bitar regularly filed countersuits against him, effectively jamming the legal process.
Najwa Hayek’s daughter, Lara, was alone when the explosion ripped through her home. She suffered serious head injuries and quickly collapsed into a coma. Four years later she is yet to regain consciousness.
“I lost hope in those days. I cursed the government who abandoned its people like that. It is a pity to be Lebanese sometimes, because there is never any justice for us.”
Amidst the deadlock, there was an escalating feud between Judge Bitar and Lebanon’s General Prosecutor, Ghassan Ouiedat, who consistently denied requests to prosecute suspects. To overcome this, Bitar charged Ouiedat in 2023, who filed his own lawsuit against Bitar and released all the suspects charged in the investigation. This effectively killed the investigation, as many key suspects fled the country.
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“Fundamentally, the Lebanese judicial system is not independent,” says Wadih Al-Asmar, the President of the Lebanese Centre for Human Rights.
“Those senior in the hierarchy are subject to a large degree of political interference, as they have to maintain good relationships with the political class in order to keep their positions.”
Although Al-Asmar believes that the General Prosecutor came under intense political pressure to block the investigation, he is sceptical that this interference was isolated to Hezbollah and Amal.
Instead, he suggests that “blocking the investigation was a common interest amongst the establishment, as the port was a source of corruption for many factions. Those investigated by Bitar came from across the political spectrum, not just certain factions”.
In Lebanon, deeply riven by sectarian divides, few things unite the political class quite like the desire to protect each other from accountability for their kleptocratic, negligent behaviour.
It is such behaviour that regularly ravages the lives of Lebanon’s citizens. For Mirielle Khoury, whose 15-year-old son Elias was killed in his own room by the explosion, these ravages are keenly felt.
“I lost all my money when the banks collapsed, I have weathered such losses my whole life” she says. “But you cannot destroy my family. You cannot kill us in our own homes. We are not rats. My son deserved to live, he deserved to grow up and become a man,” she added.
“Our pain has two faces,” confesses Mirielle. “The pain of our never-ending loss, and the pain of injustice. It is that pain that eats you from inside.”
In the years after the tragedy, Mirielle, like so many others who lost dearly that day, poured herself into campaigning for justice, seeking alternative routes through the UN’s Human Rights Council when it became clear that the Lebanese investigation had stalled.
Yet for Mirielle, even justice is little reprieve. “My life ended on August 4th, I have never left that day. I am already a dead person, so my fight for justice isn’t for me, but it is on behalf of the Lebanese people.”
The fight hasn’t been easy. The political class has resorted to intimidation, imprisonment, and violence in its mission to escape accountability. Judge Bitar was regularly threatened as a result of his work. On several occasions, activists were attacked while protesting. In one incident, Mirielle was forced to flee as masked men beat protesters gathered outside Speaker of the House Nabih Berri’s house.
William Noun, whose brother Joe, a firefighter, was killed whilst battling the flames at the port, has also received retaliation for his outspoken activism. Following a social media post stating that the Palace of Justice would explode if they didn’t get justice, members of the security services raided his home.
“They came and searched my home, they searched my parents, they searched my work. They asked me if I had hidden weapons. I was prohibited from posting on social media,” Noun told The New Arab. He was detained for two days, whilst outraged crowds gathered outside in protest.
“Even after the explosion, after everything that has happened, the government treats us like criminals when all we are campaigning for is an independent investigation into what happened,” he said.
“It is important that we create protections for the victims of these crimes,” argues Al-Asmar, who has himself faced intimidation in his work as a human rights activist. “Powerful actors often weaponise the judiciary against them,” he added.
“The judiciary should exist to establish the truth and hold people accountable, not as a tool to protect the powerful.”
Yet, amongst campaigners there is optimism that this can be achieved following the election of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
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“Judge Salam [the former President of the ICJ] has a venerable background, who has risen to the highest level in his field. His background is in law, not in corruption. He has also regularly expressed support for our campaign,” says Noun. “We just hope that he can implement the Lebanese constitution.”
Similarly, President Joseph Aoun is well-respected amongst the campaigning families. In his former role as head of the army, he built a monument to the victims of the explosion, where he regularly held memorials with the families of the victims.
“He was the only one from the government who has shown us or the victims any respect,” says Mirielle. “Since the explosion, I had lost hope about the future of Lebanon, but now I feel that something good could come.”
However, the obstacles that lie ahead are immense. “The main challenge now is that the primary tool for reform is the parliament, and it’s not exactly a reformist parliament,” claims Al-Asmar. “It’s important to remember that although we may soon have a new government, much of the old system will remain in place.”
He stressed the importance of the new executive ensuring that Judge Bitar feels protected from interference by malign actors seeking to block the investigation’s progress.
Judge Bitar’s decision to reopen the investigation signals renewed confidence that he can move forward without interference. It is a “brave” decision, according to Ghida Frangieh, head of Litigation at Legal Agenda, yet he may still face opposition, in particular from the current General Prosecutor Judge Jamal Al-Hajj, successor to Judge Oueidit, who refused to annul his predecessor’s decisions.
Instead, Frangieh believes that the new government will need to replace him with someone who “would collaborate with the investigation rather than obstruct it,” alongside adopting draft laws on the independence of the judiciary in line with the Venice Commission.
The significance of this issue cannot be overstated. Achieving justice over the port explosion could “facilitate accountability in other major crimes,” such as those financial crimes that led to Lebanon’s economic collapse.
According to Frangieh, this could “break the long-standing cycle of legal impunity in Lebanon, and through it, rebuild Lebanese national institutions on the principles of accountability and independence”.
Cian Ward is a journalist based in Beirut, covering conflict, migration, and humanitarian issues
Follow him on X: @CP__Ward
