Fadi Sawwan, the lead judge in the probe into the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion, suspended investigations for 10 days to respond to the request of two former ministers that he step aside. Former ministers Ghazi Zeaiter and Ali Hassan Khalil, who were both charged by Sawwan for criminal negligence over the blast, submitted an appeal against the judge on Wednesday, accusing him of having political motives and violating the constitution. The political allies of the two former ministers, as well as those of caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and former Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos, who were also charged, have rallied around them. Diab and two of the former ministers have refused to show up to hearings before the judge. Last night, a group of protesters gathered outside Sawwan’s house in Achrafieh in a display of support, holding banners reading “Down with immunity” and “Charge them all, former and current [officials].”

Emmanuel Macron indefinitely postponed his trip to Lebanon scheduled for next week after he tested positive for COVID-19. The French president’s impending visit was viewed as a means to pressure Lebanon’s leaders to form a government capable of enacting the reforms laid out in the so-called French initiative launched by Macron in September. Nearly two months after Saad Hariri was nominated as prime minister-designate, a new cabinet does not look imminent after a rift emerged between him and President Michel Aoun over naming ministers, especially Christians. Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai is expected to meet with Aoun today to discuss the government formation process.

Preparations to establish a small COVID-19 field hospital in Sir al-Dinnieh got underway yesterday, more than a month after two 500-bed field hospitals were donated by Qatar. Tripoli MP Ali Darwish told L'Orient Today that the two tented hospitals will effectively be split in half, with two hosting 200 beds and another two with 300 beds. Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan tweeted that the hospitals will be set up in Sir al-Dinnieh and Tripoli in north Lebanon, and in Sur and Jwayya in the south, while COVID-19 units will be expanded in five public hospitals in the areas. Protesters in Tripoli gathered outside the Chahine Hospital, which Health Ministry officials were visiting, to demand the delayed installation of the promised field hospital in their city.

The Lebanese Army surveyed over 700 containers that had been abandoned at the Beirut port since 2005. A source at the port told L’Orient Today that preliminary observations found that around 30 containers were in poor condition with indications that toxic materials were stored inside, and that samples would undergo laboratory testing. The remaining containers were preliminarily deemed safe, the source said, but would need to be opened because they were missing manifest papers — reports that list details about the containers’ arrival dates and cargo. Last month, Lebanon signed a contract with German company Combi Lift to handle and dispose of some 52 containers holding dangerous materials.

Parliament’s Public Works, Transportation, Energy and Water Committee approved a draft law to renew the operational contract between Électricité de Zahle and Électricité du Liban. According to our sister publication L’Orient-Le Jour, the agreement was a compromise between proposals, one from the Free Patriotic Movement calling for a one-year renewal and opening up the contract to public bids, and another from the Future Movement and the Lebanese Forces that requested a two year extension. The resulting law is a combination of the two: a renewed, two-year contract that obliges EDL to prepare tenders with a new book of terms. The law is set to go before the full Parliament on Monday.

Students have called for a “day of rage” against increased university tuition fees, with secular clubs from over 10 universities planning a march in Hamra on Saturday. Last week, the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University effectively more than doubled tuition by abandoning the official exchange rate of LL1,515 to the dollar in favor of the LL3,900 “bank rate.” In a press conference yesterday, caretaker Education Minister Tarek Majzoub repeated pleas for universities to set fees in lira and adopt the official dollar exchange rate, but the universities have not budged.