(4 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bsalim, Mount Lebanon – 2 August 2025
1. Various of George Bezdjian lighting a candle and offering prayers in front of portraits of his daughter Jessica
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) George Bezdjian, Father of Jessica George Bezdjian, a Beirut Blast victim:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND IS PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOT 3++
“We will reach justice because we are still demanding it. We haven’t forgotten. It’s been five years, but it feels like yesterday. You can’t tell a mother to forget. You can’t tell a father to forget, or a brother to forget. We’re still persevering. We still believe there will be justice, but only if the politicians in Lebanon take their hands off the judiciary system.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon – 2 August 2025
3. Wide of Beirut port
4. Damaged building
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bsalim, Mount Lebanon – 2 August 2025
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) George Bezdjian, Father of Jessica George Bezdjian, a Beirut Blast victim:
++SOUDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND IS OVERLAID BY SHOT 6++
“The world collapsed, it was like an earthquake. I couldn’t even understand what happened. By the end of the day I lost my little daughter, my child. Any father would understand what it means to lose your child.”
6. Various of photos of Jessica
7. Mid of Jessica’s portraits
8. Close of a pin with Jessica’s picture fastened to George’s t-shirt
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) George Bezdjian, Father of Jessica George Bezdjian, a Beirut Blast victim:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON SHOT 7 AND OVERLAID BY SHOTS 8 & 10++
“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. I begged him, but he didn’t reply to me.”
10. Mid of George looking at a ship in the Mediterranean Sea
STORYLINE:
George Bezdjian still remembers searching for his daughter, Jessica, after the Beirut port explosion five years ago.
He found her at the St. Georges Hospital where she worked as a nurse.
He thought she was working, but found her lying on the floor being treated by her own colleagues before she passed away.
She was one of four medical staff killed at the hospital.
“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 told The Associated Press from his home in Bsalim, some 10 kilometers away from the port.
He sat in a corner where he put up portraits of Jessica next to burning incense to honor her.
“I begged him, but he didn’t reply to me.”
The Aug. 4, 2020 blast 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 swaths 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 backed investigative Judge Tarek Bitar, who was tasked with investigating the explosion.
But the judge shook the country’s ruling elite, pursuing top officials, who for years obstructed Bitar’s investigation.
No official has been held to account in a probe that for years has been stalled by corrupt officials dodging accountability.
The widespread rage over the explosion, and years of apparent negligence from a web of political, security, and judicial officials faded as Lebanon’s economy further crumbled, and conflict rocked the country.
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