Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh, during a round table at the National Library in Sanayeh devoted to the repercussions of the explosions at the port of Beirut, on Aug. 3, 2025. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L’Orient-Le Jour)
Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh said Sunday he has added the silos at Beirut Port — devastated by the deadly Aug. 4, 2020 explosion and later struck by a series of fires in 2022 — to the general inventory of historic monuments.
Speaking at a roundtable at the National Library in Sanayeh, focused on the disaster's consequences and organized with the Ministry of Social Affairs — the first such event marking the Aug. 4 anniversary — Salameh said he signed the decision Sunday morning.
The Lebanese government approved the silos' demolition in March 2022. Two days later, the culture minister decided to classify them as historic monuments. At the end of August 2022, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati sent a letter to the public works minister asking him to "preserve the south block of the silos as a memorial to the port's martyrs." Recently, relatives of the victims of the Aug. 4 tragedy met with several Lebanese officials, including Salameh, to discuss the protection of the port silos.
'No compromise at the expense of justice'
Speaking at the conference, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed that "discovering the truth about the Beirut Port explosion and holding officials accountable is a unifying national cause."
"Impunity has become a culture; it has allowed corruption to endure and repeated collapses to occur," he added, stating that "the Aug. 4 case is not just judicial; it also raises questions about the kind of country we want to live in, because there can be no country without justice."
"There will be no compromise at the expense of justice, and this wound cannot heal until the whole truth is revealed and all those responsible are tried, no matter who they are," Salam said, stating that "every official will be held accountable."
The prime minister also stated that “without justice, citizenship has no meaning and state-building is pointless,” reaffirming his commitment to “building a free, independent, and sovereign state that fully exercises its sovereignty over its entire territory by its own means,” in accordance with the ministerial declaration.
“Truth is the mother of all justice,” said Salam.
The Aug. 4 tragedy killed 235 people, injured more than 7,000, and destroyed a large part of Lebanon's capital. Five years later, no officials have yet been tried because of political interference in the investigation led by Judge Tarek Bitar. Several commemorations are scheduled on Sunday and Monday.
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