Beirut port blast anniversary overshadowed by new wave of destruction
As much of southern Lebanon lies in ruins due to Israeli attacks, residents struggle once again to rebuild their lives. Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Lebanon – Every
As much of southern Lebanon lies in ruins due to Israeli attacks, residents struggle once again to rebuild their lives. Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Lebanon – Every year on August 4 since 2020, families of the victims of a massive explosion at Beirut port gather outside the site of what was one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in modern history. They continue to press Lebanese authorities for justice and accountability for the explosion of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored with highly inflammable materials. Yet there has been none, despite a change in leadership that promised to support an independent judiciary into the blast that killed more than 200 people. This year I couldn’t attend the commemorations because I was covering another tragedy – only the latest to devastate Lebanon. I was in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, a small town in southern Lebanon that lies in ruins after weeks of Israeli air attacks, shelling and at times deliberate demolitions of people’s homes amid fighting with the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Residents are trying to start again – but they can’t. Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since October 2023, with different levels of intensity, but the former has twice escalated the conflict – first in September 2024 and then in early March this year, after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
People in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh had not recovered from the first escalation before they found themselves escaping bombing and displaced yet again. The majority of houses in the town are so badly damaged they are uninhabitable. I watched a man in his 80s cry as he showed me the mountain of concrete that used to be his home. “I feel humiliated,” he said. “I have no choice but to collect the scrap metal from my destroyed home to sell in order to be able to survive.” In 2019, Lebanon’s economy, local currency and the banking sector all but collapsed, leaving people unable to access their savings. And little if anything has been done by the political class to carry out required financial reforms to bring in much-needed international funds. The reconstruction bill for the latest escalation is in the billions of dollars. Officials do not have an exact figure but say it could climb to $20bn. It might be a conservative estimate. I have been visiting villages across southern Lebanon since the reduction in violence a few weeks ago. The devastation is unprecedented. Basic services are no longer available. In some areas, there are no telecommunication networks. And then there are the dozens of villages that we cannot access because they are occupied by the Israeli military.
The BriefWire