UN, Italy Sign 2-Year Deal To Help Rebuild Beirut

The United Nations and Italy have signed an agreement to help rebuild areas of Beirut affected by the port explosion two years ago. The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and the UN Program for Human Settlements on Wednesday signed the two-year agreement worth $2.37 million.

The rebuilding project will include repairing the Mar Mikhael railway station and restoring some of the apartment buildings and other housing damaged in the blast.

Also on Wednesday, a Lebanese judge ordered the seizure of the property of Parliament members Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, worth about $66 million, following a complaint filed by the Beirut Bar Association demanding that the two be questioned for using their rights “in an arbitrary manner by filing complaints intended to hinder the investigation” into the explosion. They had both been summoned for questioning in the investigation, but each had filed around 20 complaints against Judge Tarek Bitar, forcing the investigation to be repeatedly suspended. They are both members of parliament speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal party.

On August 4, 2020, some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which was stored in a warehouse at the port, exploded after an uncontrolled fire broke out in an adjacent warehouse, causing one of the most disastrous blasts in the history of the modern world. The explosion killed more than 200, injured more than 6,000 and damaged much of Lebanon’s capital city.