Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivering his speech, Aug. 3, 2023. (Credit: Screenshot al-Manar)
In a speech on Thursday evening, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah criticized the parties accusing his party of being behind the Beirut port explosion, on the eve of the third commemoration of the blast, claiming that these parties "lost the truth" of what happened on Aug. 4, 2020.
The Beirut blast killed over 220 people, wounded more than 6,500 and destroyed swaths of the capital.
"It is a painful and sad commemoration. We renew our condolences to the families of the victims," Nasrallah said. "We are all still waiting for the truth."
Nasrallah laid the blame on those who "politicized the case since the first day."
"From the first moment, some arrogant TV stations said that Hezbollah exploded the port. They put pictures of our brothers, accusing them of bringing the ammonium nitrate, but all of these are lies. By doing all of this, they brought the port explosion into the regional conflict."
Nevertheless, Nasrallah said that "those responsible for this crime should be prosecuted."
The blast was ignited by a fire in a hangar at the Beirut port, where thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate were stored without any security measures. Independent investigations linked the ammonium nitrate cargo, unloaded in Beirut in 2014, to Syrian businessmen close to the Assad regime, a close ally of Hezbollah.
Nasrallah also linked the Beirut port explosion to the Ain al-Hilweh clashes.
Since Saturday, Ain al-Hilweh — Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp — has been the scene of armed clashes between Islamist factions and the Fatah Movement, which led to the death of 12 people.
Nasrallah said the same TV Station that blamed Hezbollah for the explosion is now blaming the party for the Ain al-Hilweh clashes.
"We still did not provide a narrative for what happened," he said. He insisted that Hezbollah is 'not responsible' for the clashes in Ain al-Hilweh.
He added that Hezbollah has been communicating with Lebanese and Palestinian officials to stop the clashes, and that the violence hurts Hezbollah's projects in Lebanon and the region.