Special Coverage Five years on: Beirut Port blast victims still seek justice in Lebanon

Al Arabiya

3 days ago

Five years after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history devastated Beirut's port and surrounding neighborhoods, victims' families and survivors are still fighting for justice as a long-stalled investigation slowly resumes under Lebanon's new government.
In an apartment near the Lebanese capital's ravaged port, Paul and Tracy Naggear cradle their two young children born from a determination to keep living after losing everything that mattered most.
Their three-year-old daughter Alexandra was among the more than 200 people killed when thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded on August 4, 2020.
Half a decade later, the Naggears' grief remains as raw as their anger over a stalled investigation that has yielded no answers, accountability, norjustice for their daughter.
'Our lives were destroyed on the fourth of August when my daughter Alexandra passed away,' Paul Naggear said during an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English. 'Everything was destroyed, our apartment, our neighborhoods, our future. This is as tragic and traumatizing as you can imagine.'
The couple's home on one of Beirut's main thoroughfares bore the full force of the blast that devastated much of the Lebanese capital. On that summer day, the Naggears found themselves among hundreds of thousands of residents living unknowingly in the shadow of a ticking time bomb, the improperly stored ammonium nitrate that had sat in a port warehouse for years.
'My wife and I decided on the day of our daughter's passing that we would continue living. We made the choice to live and to fight for her justice,' Naggear explained. The couple has since welcomed two sons, Axel and Rafael, who 'saved us, definitely, to some extent, and allow us to continue on this path.'
But their determination to rebuild their lives has been shadowed by a maddening lack of answers about what caused the explosion that shattered their world.
'There is still no justice, which means that our daughter was taken from us, and still today, there is no accountability. There is no one behind bars,' Naggear said, his voice heavy with frustration. 'We have no idea of the truth of what happened that day.'
Haunting questions
The questions that haunt the Naggears reflect the broader mystery that continues to engulf Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. They want to know why the ammonium nitrate was stored in front of potentially 300,000 people and households, and why nobody took action to remove the dangerous cargo or safeguard its location.
Naggear's account of that chaotic day reveals the human cost of the government's unpreparedness. 'I had to take our daughter to the hospital on a scooter because you can imagine the situation she was in, because there was no immediate relief effort planned,' he recalled.
His wife Tracy, who suffered three broken ribs, three broken vertebrae, and a severe head injury, 'had to walk for a very long time until she found a vehicle that took her to the hospital in a very, very bad condition.'
In addition to the suffering, the family for four years watched as the investigative judge responsible for the case was systematically obstructed, due to what he described as government harassment.
Though Naggear noted that 'the situation now, since earlier this year, has been better,' the fundamental questions about their daughter's death – and the deaths of more than 200 others – remain unanswered.
Resuming an investigation
Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation into the incident in January after being forced to suspend it in 2021 due to intense political pressure. His renewed probe comes as Lebanon attempts to rebuild credibility under President Joseph Aoun and reformist Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, both of whom have pledged to uphold judicial independence.
For Carmen Geha, an academic and consultant who witnessed the blast firsthand, the lack of accountability became unbearable. She left Lebanon three years ago, driven not by the explosion itself, but by what followed – or rather, what didn't.
'I left specifically because of the aftermath of the explosion, specifically because nothing happened after that, and it's been five years and nothing has happened,' Geha told Al Arabiya English.
A fellow at Chatham House who was teaching at the American University of Beirut at the time, Geha participated in community cleanup efforts in the weeks following the disaster.
'I was at home, the building shook. I was in Beirut. Everybody thought it was in their own neighborhood,' she recalled of that August afternoon. 'And then we quickly realized that nothing was going to happen.'
Investigation faces continued obstacles
The devastating port blast was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been unsafely stored for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.
Multiple investigations have revealed that high-ranking Lebanese officials, including the president at the time, knew about the dangerous materials stored near residential areas.
Bitar was accused of bias by several officials named in the probe, including former interior minister Nohad Machnouk, who is suspected of 'negligence and misconduct.' These officials launched a series of legal proceedings against the judge, effectively paralyzing the investigation.
The probe was further hampered when Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanese politics but now weakened by its recent war with Israel, accused Bitar of bias and demanded his removal. The militant group's opposition effectively brought the investigation to a halt for over two years.
On April 11, two former top security officials appeared before Bitar for the first time since the investigation's resumption.
'Nothing has happened'
Yaarob Sakher, a now retired Lebanese army brigadier, anxiously awaited the investigation into the explosion by the state but expresses disappointment, saying that Hezbollah's interference prevented any meaningful results.
'They blocked the investigation and nothing happened until now,' he said.
For Geha, the scope of inaction extends far beyond the courtroom. 'Nobody went to jail. There's yet to be a court investigation. There has not been a trial. No victim compensation, bodies and debris and remains were continued to be identified months later.'
The explosion was particularly devastating because of its scope and the prior knowledge of officials. 'There were public officials, including the president at the time, that he knew that there was explosive material at the port,' Geha said. 'So that idea that it was kind of building up that creepiness of it. So that's number one very particular kind of crime, second, the level of negligence and corruption that can cover up for something so big.'
In the immediate aftermath of the blast, Beirut witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of community solidarity. Geha participated in academic-led initiatives to assess environmental damage and support collapsed small businesses, while volunteers across the city organized cleanup efforts and aid distribution.
'The one positive thing was the short lived, like, community efforts, sort of hope, the hope and the dark that emerges when, when a disaster happens, right?' she said. 'People really, you know, shunned, politicians, called for justice, helped each other, building restaurants, collecting glass, raising money, bringing medicine.'
But this grassroots response couldn't compensate for institutional failures. 'That short lived elation could only be short lived, because people cannot fix a country. You need structures,' Geha explained.
In addition to what was happening, international aid largely failed to materialize due to lack of trust in Lebanese government institutions.
'The aid didn't come in, and rightfully so, because government institutions couldn't be trusted,' she said. 'The government institutions entrusted with that process of organizing the aid failed, but there was a caretaker government that bulls****ed their way month after month.'
Even the volunteer cleanup efforts later proved problematic. 'We realized later that actually, we shouldn't have been cleaning the debris, and that there's asbestos everywhere,' recalled, saying that it 'hurtthe eyes of the young people that were carrying broomsticks.'.
Lasting trauma, continuing crisis
The explosion occurred against the backdrop of Lebanon's ongoing economic collapse and followed massive anti-government protests in 2019. Rather than spurring meaningful reform, the blast's aftermath saw conditions worsen, culminating in another devastating war with Israel in 2023.
'That early elation then turned to frustration, emigration and increased tensions in the country, because it's a country of misery, of a million refugees that can't work. You have refugee camps that are armed. You have people with school dropouts. You have drug addiction, narcotic state, all on top of the initial elation turned into just horrible,' Geha said.
Despite the new government's promises, Geha remains skeptical about prospects for justice. When asked what she hoped to see in the next five years, she called for 'a public trial, a proper process of indictment, a traditional investigation that wins people's hearts and minds. Maybe it's not going to [bring back] the dead, but it might create an impediment for level of evil again.'
She said that Lebanon is not unique in experiencing political crimes and crimes against humanity, pointing to international models for truth commissions and transitional justice.
'There is a way to model this. There is a way that we can learn on setting up tools commissions, and there is a way…I really don't know whether there's no inertia.'
The current government, led by President Aoun and Prime Minister Salam, has made the right statements about judicial independence, according to Geha.
'Now there is a government that says all the right things…and you know, it looks good, but I don't see why there isn't that destination.'
Sakher all but shares Geha's concerns, fearing that the new government could ultimately turn out to be not so different from previous ones. Yet, he keeps wishing for real change and results regarding the investigation.
'Hope is there'
The port blast investigation has broader implications for Lebanon's relationship with international partners and its prospects for recovery from multiple crises. The explosion occurred amid a severe economic collapse that has pushed millions into poverty and triggered massive emigration.
As Lebanon marks the fifth anniversary of the explosion, the contrast between the scale of the tragedy and the absence of accountability remains unforgiveable said Geha, adding that the lack of progress represents not just a failure of justice, but a fundamental breach of the social contract.
'It's an insult. Honestly.'
'Like a city after war'
Farea al-Muslimi, Research Fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program, reflected on how the Beirut port blast fundamentally changed his understanding of conflict and governance in Lebanon.
'Personally, since I was there, first and foremost, the second day after the blast, Beirut looked like a city after a war,' al-Muslimi told Al Arabiya English. The scene, he said, reminded him of war-torn cities in Yemen and elsewhere, leading him to a broader realization about the nature of what Lebanese people were experiencing.
'The explosion made me rethink the very concept of war,' he said, adding what was being done to the Lebanese people constituted a war, but 'they did not have the right to call it a war or even the benefit of a war.' Instead, it was 'a war by their bankers, a war by the system, a war by the sectarian formula in the country – essentially a conflict with many criminals but where 'no one was called a criminal.'
Al-Muslimi argued that the situation exemplifies what happens under Lebanon's power-sharing system andhe warned of its real consequences: 'You have a bunch of criminals, a bunch of warlords, and instead of them being in jail, you award them with a political formula that basically gives them new ways to continue launching these wars against civilians.'
The researcher emphasized that Lebanon's dignity had been 'shattered' because those in power faced no accountability despite their failures. This lack of consequences, he suggested, stems from the need to maintain the country's sectarian power-sharing balance.
Looking ahead, al-Muslimi expressed uncertainty about Lebanon's path forward. Five years after the blast, he questioned how the country could 'pull things together and move forward' without holding anyone accountable for what happened.