An image grab taken from al-Manar TV on August 7, 2020, shows the head of Lebanon's Shia group Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah during a televised speech to comment on the massive explosion that rocked Beirut. (AFP)

Beirut explosion: Hezbollah ‘categorically denies’ storing arms at blast site

Lebanon

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Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English

Published: 07 August ,2020: 08:17 PM GST Updated: 07 August ,2020: 08:41 PM GST

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah strongly denied on Friday claims that his Iran-backed Shia group had stored arms at the Port of Beirut, the site of a deadly explosion which killed at least 154 people.

"I categorically deny" such rumors, Nasrallah said in a televised speech three days after the explosion which ripped through Beirut.

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"We have nothing in the port: not an arms depot, nor a missile depot nor missiles nor rifles nor bombs nor bullets nor ammonium nitrate," he added.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun had said the explosion was due to a stockpile of 2,750 tons of the industrial chemical ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and explosives, catching fire after having been stored at the port since 2013 without safety measures.

Tuesday’s blast left more than 5,000 people injured, smashed masonry, shattered windows, sucked furniture out of apartments onto the streets and left up to a quarter of a million people in disaster-stricken Beirut without homes fit to live in, according to Lebanese officials.

- With AFP

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