George Bezdjian recalls the desperate search for his daughter, Jessica, a nurse at St. George’s Hospital, following the massive explosion at Beirut’s port five years ago.
The hospital was in the path of the blast and was heavily damaged. He found his daughter lying on the floor as her colleagues tried to revive her.
They weren't able to save her. She was one of four medical staff killed there.
“I started telling God that living for 60 years is more than enough. If you're going to take someone from the family, take me and leave her alive,” he said from his home in Bsalim, about 10 kilometres from the port.
He sat in a corner where he put up portraits of Jessica next to burning incense to honour her.
The blast on August 4, 2020 in Beirut’s port tore through the Lebanese capital after hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in a warehouse.
The gigantic explosion killed at least 218 people, according to an AP count, wounded more than 6,000 others and devastated large swathes of Beirut, causing billions of dollars in damages.
It further angered the nation, already in economic free-fall after decades of corruption and financial crimes.
Many family members of the victims pinned their hopes on Judge Tarek Bitar, who was tasked with investigating the explosion.
The judge shook the country’s ruling elite, pursuing top officials who, for years, obstructed his investigation.
But five years after the blast, no official has been convicted as the probe has stalled.
And the widespread rage over the explosion and years of apparent negligence from a web of political, security and judicial officials has faded as Lebanon's economy further crumbled and conflict rocked the country.
Judge Bitar had aimed to release the indictment last year, but it was stalled by months of war between Israel and Hezbollah that decimated large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon, killing some 4,000 people.
“There will be no settlement in the port case before there is accountability,” Minister Nawaf Salam said on Sunday.
Bitar hopes that some European suspects can be questioned about the shipment of ammonium nitrate and the vessel carrying it that ended up in the Beirut Port.
Scars of the explosion
The port and the surrounding Beirut neighbourhoods that were levelled in the deadly blast appear functional again, but there are still scars.
The most visible are what’s left standing of the mammoth grain silos at the port, which withstood the force of the blast but later partly collapsed in 2022 after a series of fires.
Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh on Sunday classified them as historical monuments.
There was no centralised effort by the cash-strapped Lebanese government to rebuild the surrounding neighbourhoods.
An initiative by the World Bank, Europe and the United Nations to fund recovery projects was slow to kick off, while larger reconstruction projects were contingent on reforms that never came.
Many family and business owners fixed their damaged property out of pocket or reached out to charities and grassroots initiatives.
A 2022 survey by the Beirut Urban Lab, a research centre at the American University of Beirut, found that 60 percent to 80 percent of apartments and businesses damaged in the blast had been repaired.
“This was a reconstruction primarily driven by nonprofits and funded by diaspora streams,” said Mona Harb, a professor of urban studies and politics at AUB and co-founder of the research centre.
But regardless of how much of the city is rebuilt and through what means, Aug. 4 will always be a “dark day of sadness,” says Bezdjian.
“We will do to them what every mother and father would do if someone killed their child, and if they knew who killed their son or daughter,” he said.
