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Disaster in Beirut

Demonstrations in Lebanon continue: "We will not forget until the hanging ropes are lifted"

The demonstrators are not content with just changing the composition of the government, and demand a real change. They observed a minute of silence in memory of the 171 victims of the explosion at the port and called for the resignation of the president and other senior officials. "First bury the authorities"

• Lebanon
• Beirut
• Michelle Aoun

News agencies

Demonstrations in Lebanon against the authorities continue today (Tuesday) despite the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab yesterday. The protesters, who stood for a minute of silence in memory of the 171 victims of the disaster at the port, are demanding the replacement of the entire ruling elite, whom they accuse of corruption that has destroyed the country.

According to the French ambassador to the country, who toured the site with French experts supporting the blast investigation, a crater with a radius of more than a hundred meters remains across platform number 9. 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, negligently stored for about seven years in port despite warnings from various sources, one two weeks before the blast. Last week extensive parts of Beirut. About 6,000 people were injured and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.

The demonstration, under the slogan "Bury the authorities first", took place a day after Diab, a professor who accepted the position but last January with the support of Hezbollah, announced the resignation of the government. He blamed chronic corruption in Lebanon for the blast, the largest in the history of Beirut to the extent of the wars and terrorist attacks. It happened at a time when the country was already in the midst of a deep economic desert, during which the pound collapsed, the banking system was silenced and the prices of basic goods rose sharply.

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The demonstrators put up a display of hanging rope. "We will not be forgotten until the hanging ropes are lifted," said one of the protesters, as he read out the names of some of the victims screened on a big screen, which aired documentation of the mushroom that enveloped the Beirut sky a week ago. Some of the protesters carried pictures of the dead.

After Diab submitted his resignation to President Aoun yesterday, he will open consultations with the rest of the political blocs, but according to the ethnic political system, he will have to be Sunni. Thus, for example, each community has an executive quota in the port of Beirut, the main trading artery of the land of cedars, which means that not necessarily the most talented people are always selected for the job.

"It's a good thing the government has resigned, but we need new blood now, otherwise it will not work," Audis Anserlian, a deaf man by profession, told Reuters in front of his ruined shop.

"It does not end with the resignation of the government," a protest poster posted on social media read. "There is still the (President) Aoun, (Speaker of Parliament) Berry and the whole system." International remained stuck due to disagreement between the government, banks and politicians over the extent of the economic damage.

The outgoing government was formed only in January, with the support of Shiite Hezbollah and its allies, after more than two months since Saad al-Hariri, who enjoyed the support of the West and the Gulf states, resigned due to demonstrations against the government. It is not at all clear when the president's official consultations with the various factions will begin and it is not clear who will agree to take over the post at such a time.

Even a week later, the search for 30 to 40 missing from the blast continues. "Our house was destroyed and we are alone," Khalil Haddad said. "We're trying to fix it the best we can right now. Let's see, I hope there will be help, and the most important thing: that the truth be revealed."

Authorities have promised that those responsible for the default and the disaster will be prosecuted and punished with the full severity of the law, but many residents believe they will be found damn hairy and senior echelons will save their skin. The president even raised the speculation that "foreign intervention," such as a missile or bomb, may have led to the disaster, although there is no further justification for it.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah denied that his organization had ammunition in the port, but did not attribute the blast to Israel. The disaster led to a certain lull on the northern border, after days of tension over the IDF's fear of revenge by Hezbollah for killing one of its operatives in Syria in an airstrike attributed to the Air Force.