BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former army chief told the lead investigator of last year’s massive Beirut port blast on Thursday that he had recommended, years before the explosion, that tons of seized ammonium nitrate stored there be sold privately or sent back to importers.
The military had no use for the volatile chemical, testified Jean Kahwaji, who was army chief until 2017.
Kahwaji was summoned for questioning as a witness six months after the probe began, the first army official and the most senior security official to testify in the probe.
He told the lead investigator that the army had no use for the ammonium nitrate because it was a large amount and “has limited use and because it dissolves with time, it constitutes a danger if stored for a long time.”
Kahwaji said the army had no room to store it and no ability to get rid of it. He added the army then asked the customs authority to sell it to a private explosive company in Lebanon or to re-export to the country of origin at the expense of the importers.
According to a local media investigation, the importers had carried out their own tests of the nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, months after it was stored at the port, and then dropped any claims to the shipment. The chemicals ended up staying in the warehouse for six years before detonating. What sparked the explosion remains unknown.
The volatile fertilizer ignited last Aug. 4, causing one of the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, disfiguring Beirut and killing 211 people. More than 6,000 were injured in the explosion.
The shipment entered the port of Beirut in 2013 because of technical problems with the ship. It was then confiscated and stored in a warehouse in the port since 2014.
After the explosion, it was revealed that many of Lebanon’s political and security officials knew of the stored ammonium nitrate, and many of them had warned in internal communication of the dangers of keeping it in the port in hazardous conditions.
The army command, when Kahwaji was in charge, was one of the entities that exchanged letters with the customs department on what to do with the ammonium nitrate.
In April 2016, the army sent a letter to the Customs Authority with its recommendation.
On Thursday, Kahwaji told lead investigator Judge Fadi Sawwan the “army had carried out and continues to carry duties according to the law.” His statement as reported by his lawyer was carried by the National News Agency.
In December, Sawwan filed charges against caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers, accusing them of negligence leading to the deaths of hundreds of people.
The charges sparked a backlash and the former ministers challenged the judge’s authority in court, bringing the probe to a halt. But the country’s highest court asked Sawwan to resume his work.
The questioning of Kahwaji signaled the resumption of the probe, and is likely to ease public concerns that the investigation was derailed, given Lebanon’s decades-long culture of impunity and political interference in judicial matters.
Nearly 30 people, most of them port and customs officials, have been arrested since the blast.
Lebanese ex-army chief testifies in Beirut port blast probe
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Lebanese ex-army chief testifies in Beirut port blast probe
- Kahwaji is the first army official and the most senior security official to testify in the probe
- He told the lead investigator that he had recommended years before the blast that tons of seized ammonium nitrate be sold privately
Netanyahu says Israel accepts Witkoff’s new Gaza truce proposal, media report
Hamas said earlier that it had received the new proposal from mediators and was studying it.
Tunisian minister expects grain harvest rising 64 percent to 1.8 million metric tons this season
- The sharp increase is attributed to improved rainfall in key agricultural regions
- Last year’s grain crop was around 1.1 million metric tons
TUNIS: Tunisia’s grain harvest to rise to 1.8 million metric tons this season, Agriculture Minister Ezzedine Ben Cheikh said on Wednesday, up more than 64 percent from last year’s harvest, marking the country’s strong season in five years after consecutive drought seasons.
The sharp increase is attributed to improved rainfall in key agricultural regions.
“It is a good season with about 1.8 million metric tons,” Ben Cheikh said.
Last year’s grain crop was around 1.1 million metric tons.
The country, which is suffering a deep financial crisis, was badly affected by the rise in global wheat prices and successive dry seasons.
The anticipated production growth will enable Tunisia to reduce its imports of grain.
Over the last decade, Tunisia has averaged about 1.5 million metric tons in annual grain harvests, while it has consumed around 3.4 million metric tons per year.
Cyprus offers Syrian families money to resettle and work permits for main earners
- Ioannides said that families wishing to voluntarily return will be given a one-off sum of 2,000 euros ($2,255) for one adult and 1,000 euros ($1,128) for each child
- Family’s main income earner will be granted a special residency and work permit allowing them to stay for a minimum of two years in Cyprus with the option of another year
NICOSIA: Cyprus will offer Syrian families money to help them resettle back in their homeland and allow the main income earners to remain on the island nation for up to three years to work as part of a voluntary repatriation program, a Cypriot minister said Thursday.
Deputy Minister for Migration Nicholas Ioannides said that a prerequisite for families to qualify for the program is that they must drop their claims for asylum or rescind international protection status already granted to them prior to Dec. 31, 2024.
Unveiling the program, Ioannides said that families wishing to voluntarily return will be given a one-off sum of 2,000 euros ($2,255) for one adult and 1,000 euros ($1,128) for each child. Childless couples are also eligible to apply. The application period runs from June 2 to Aug. 31.
Additionally, the family’s main income earner — either the father or mother will be granted a special residency and work permit allowing them to stay for a minimum of two years in Cyprus with the option of another year.
Ioannides said that many Syrians have expressed their willingness to return and help rebuild their country, but are reluctant to do so because of the uncertainty surrounding where they’ll be able to earn a living wage.
According to the head of Cyprus’ Asylum Service Andreas Georgiades, the program’s premise is to help families overcome any such reluctance by affording them a modest nest egg with which to cover their immediate needs while enabling the main income earner to continue working and sending money to his family.
The income earner will be allowed to travel back and forth to Syria while his or her residency and work permit are valid.
Syrian nationals make up the largest group of asylum-seekers in Cyprus by far. According to Asylum Service figures, 4,226 Syrians applied for asylum last year — almost 10 times more than Afghans who are the second-largest group.
“This new program is a targeted, humanitarian and realistic policy that bolsters Syria’s post-war transition to normality,” Ioannides said, adding that European Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner considers the program as a potential example for other European Union member countries to follow.
Meanwhile, Ioannides repeated that a 2009 Search and Rescue agreement that Cyprus has with Syria enables Cypriot authorities to send back boatloads of Syrian migrants trying to reach the island nation after they’re rescued in international waters.
Ioannides said that two inflatable boats each loaded with 30 Syrian migrants were turned back in line with the bilateral agreement after being rescued when they transmitted that they were in danger.
Ioannides again denied Cyprus engages in any pushbacks, despite urgings from both the UN refugee agency and Europe’s top human rights body to stop pushing back migrants trying to reach the island by boat.
Libya’s eastern-based government says it may announce force majeure on oil fields, ports
- The NOC is currently located in Tripoli under the control of the internationally-recongized Government of National Unity
- Safar said that “what happened was nothing more than a limited personal dispute”
CAIRO: Libya’s eastern-based government said on Wednesday it may announce a force majeure on oil fields and ports citing “repeated assaults on the National Oil Corporation (NOC).”
The government in Benghazi is not internationally recognized, but most oilfields in the major oil producing country are under the control of eastern Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar.
The government said it may also temporarily relocate the national oil corporation’s headquarters to one of the “safe cities such as Ras Lanuf and Brega, both of which are controlled by the eastern-based government.
The NOC is currently located in Tripoli under the control of the internationally-recongized Government of National Unity (GNU).
The NOC denied in an earlier statement that the corporation’s headquarters was stormed deeming it as “completely false.”
It also emphasized it is operating normally “and continuing to perform its vital duties without interruption.”
The acting head of NOC Hussain Safar said that “what happened was nothing more than a limited personal dispute that occurred in the reception area and was immediately contained by administrative security personnel, without any impact on the corporation’s workflow or the safety of its employees.”
GNU’s media office posted video footage from inside the headquarters of the NOC showing “stable conditions and no signs of a storming or security disturbance.”
Libya’s oil output has been disrupted repeatedly in the chaotic decade since 2014 when the country divided between two rival authorities in the east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
In August, Libya lost more than half of its oil production, about 700,000 bpd, and exports were halted at several ports as a standoff between rival political factions over the central bank threatened to end four years of relative peace.
The shutdowns lasted for over a month with production gradually resuming from early October.
The North African country’s crude oil production reached 1.3 million barrels per day in the last 24 hours, according to the NOC.
44 killed in Israel attacks in Gaza, after food warehouse looted
- Israeli strike on home in Al-Bureij kills 23 people, while another two are killed by gunfire near an aid distribution point
- Jordan says Israel's systematic starvation tactics 'crossed all moral and legal boundaries'
GAZA CITY: At least 44 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, rescuers said, a day after a World Food Programme warehouse in the center of the territory was looted by desperate Palestinians.
After a more than two-month blockade, aid has finally begun to trickle back into Gaza, but the humanitarian situation remains dire after 18 months of devastating war. Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people.
The Israeli military has also recently stepped up its offensive in the territory in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.
Gaza civil defense official Mohammad Al-Mughayyir told AFP “44 people have been killed in Israeli raids,” including 23 in a strike on home in Al-Bureij.
“Two people were killed and several injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire this morning near the American aid center in the Morag axis, southern Gaza Strip,” he added.
The center, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), is part of a new system for distributing aid that Israel says is meant to keep supplies out of the hands of Hamas, but which has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.
“What is happening to us is degrading. The crowding is humiliating us,” said Gazan Sobhi Areef, who visited a GHF center on Thursday.
“We go there and risk our lives just to get a bag of flour to feed our children.”
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported deaths in Al-Bureij and near the aid center.
Separately, it said in a statement that its forces had struck “dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” over the past day.
In a telephone call Thursday with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Israel’s “systematic starvation tactics have crossed all moral and legal boundaries.”
On Wednesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in central Gaza, with Israel and the UN trading blame over the deepening hunger crisis.
AFP footage showed crowds of Palestinians breaking into the WFP facility in Deir Al-Balah and taking bags of emergency food supplies as gunshots rang out.
“Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the UN agency said in a statement.
The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid starvation fears and intense criticism of the GHF, which has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told the Security Council that aid was entering Gaza by truck — under limited authorization by Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing — and accused the UN of “trying to block” GHF’s work through “threats, intimidation and retaliation against NGOs that choose to participate.”
The UN has said it is doing its utmost to facilitate distribution of the limited assistance allowed by Israel’s authorities.
The world body said 47 people were wounded Tuesday when crowds of Palestinians rushed a GHF site. A Palestinian medical source reported at least one death.
GHF, however, alleged in a statement that there had been “several inaccuracies” circulating about its operations, adding “there are many parties who wish to see GHF fail.”
But 60-year-old Abu Fawzi Faroukh, who visited a GHF center Thursday, said the situation there was “so chaotic.”
“The young men are the ones who have received aid first, yesterday and today, because they are young and can carry loads, but the old people and women cannot enter due to the crowding,” he told AFP.
Negotiations on a ceasefire, meanwhile, have continued, with US envoy Steve Witkoff expressing optimism and saying he expected to propose a plan soon.
But Gazans remained pessimistic.
“Six hundred days have passed and nothing has changed. Death continues, and Israeli bombing does not stop,” said Bassam Daloul, 40.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 3,986 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,249, mostly civilians.
