A sign for the Victims of Aug. 4 Street stands in front of the Beirut Port on July 4, 2026, the site of the explosion that killed more than 235 people on Aug. 4, 2020. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Beirut, Aug. 4, 2026
On Aug. 4, 2020, at 6:07 in the evening, we lost the people we loved the most. Children and parents, husbands and wives, firefighters who ran toward the port while everyone else ran away. The explosion that killed more than 220 people, wounded 7,000, and left more than 150 physically disabled was no accident. It was the foreseeable result of thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate left to rot in the heart of our capital, with the knowledge, in writing, of the state's highest officials.
For six years, we have been told to wait. We waited while the first investigating judge was removed for daring to summon ministers. We waited while his successor, Judge Tarek Bitar, was buried under dozens of lawsuits filed by the very men he sought to question, while the investigation remained suspended for years at a time, while politicians who owed us answers hid behind immunities they had written for themselves. We buried our beloved ones twice: Once in the ground, and once under the paperwork of a state determined to protect itself.
Then, this March, something we had almost stopped believing in finally happened. Lebanon’s domestic investigation was completed. The file, naming some 70 officials and officers, arrived on the desk of the Public Prosecutor, Ahmad Rami Al Haji.
We were told this was a breakthrough, and it was. We welcome it. But here is what we were not told: Nothing obliges the prosecutor to finish his review by any date at all. The file must come back with Haji’s opinion before Judge Bitar can issue the indictment that brings the case to trial, and until then, accountability is paused. The results of the investigation can sit on Haji’s desk for a month, or a decade. In Lebanon, we know what happens to files that sit on desks: They gather dust until the world forgets, and impunity wins.
We will do everything in our power to ensure this is not how this case ends. We are not lawyers; we are families searching for the truth. But we understand something simple: An investigation that never becomes a trial is accountability denied, impunity by exhaustion.
Our grief is not confined to Lebanon. Nationals of Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Pakistan, Palestine, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and the United States died or were terribly injured that evening. Fortunately, some governments did not look away. French forensic experts landed the day after the explosion, and France’s own judicial investigation shared its findings with Judge Bitar. In 2023, Australia stood before the U.N. Human Rights Council on behalf of 38 states to demand a “swift, independent, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation.” Diplomats from these countries and more have mourned beside us every August, with a kindness we will not forget.
And Lebanon’s judiciary is not the only one at work. In London, the High Court has already found the company that owned the ammonium nitrate liable for the deaths and the damage. In the United States, a case against the firm that chartered the ship is advancing through the courts. Criminal complaints have been filed in Germany and Belgium, and the owner of the ship itself was arrested in Bulgaria last September.
To the international community, we say: The domestic investigation you called for is complete, but this is not the end of the story. We ask that you continue to raise the question of the case's status in every meeting with Lebanese officials, until there is a trial. Our loved ones were your citizens, your colleagues, your friends and families.
To the officials named in that file, we say: We are not going anywhere. We have counted more than 2,000 days, and we will continue counting every day.
Legal Action Worldwide, which has represented victims and survivors since the earliest stages of the investigation, puts it plainly:
"Completing the investigation is a milestone, but nobody has yet been held accountable. What now stands between the victims and a trial is no longer evidence, it is will. Victims have a right to proceedings without undue delay, and every month of silence erodes that right. Those responsible must answer, whatever their rank," Antonia Mulvey, Executive Director, Legal Action Worldwide.
Today, we appeal to the Public Prosecutor to submit his opinion on the Beirut Port file without delay, so that the indictment can be issued and the case referred to trial. Six years have passed without anyone being indicted.
No justice will ever bring back what we have lost, but our loved ones deserve the truth of what really happened on Aug. 4, 2020.
Signed by family members of the victims of the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut Port explosion:
Elie Bou Saab, father of Joe Bou Saab; Peter Bou Saab, brother of Joe Bou Saab; Nazih el-Adm, father of Krystel el-Adm; Georges Fares, father of Sahar Fares; Maria Fares, sister of Sahar Fares; Nagham Fares, sister of Sahar Fares; Nabiha Nasr, mother of Sahar Fares; Mariana Fodoulian, sister of Gaia Fodoulian; Antonella Hitti, sister of Najib Hitti; Bechara Hitti, father of Najib Hitti; Charbel Hitti, brother of Najib Hitti; Rita Hitti, mother of Najib Hitti; Georges Hitti, father of Charbel Hitti; Karlen Hitti, wife of Charbel Karam and sister of Charbel Hitti; Ralph Hitti, brother of Charbel Hitti; Sanaa Karam, mother of Charbel Hitti and sister of Charbel Karam; Wadad Karam, mother of Charbel Karam; Lara Hojaiban, daughter of Yagoda Majkic Hojaiban; Mireille Khoury, mother of Elias Khoury; Laura Kfouri, sister of Carmen Khoury Sayegh; David Mallahi, brother of Ralph Mallahi; Elie Mallahi, father of Ralph Mallahi; Nancy Noun, sister of Joe Noun; Tony Noun, father of Joe Noun; William Noun, brother of Joe Noun; Zeina Sawma, mother of Joe Noun; Sarah Copland, mother of Isaac Oehlers; Craig Oehlers, father of Isaac Oehlers; Cecile Roukoz, sister of Joseph Roukoz.
