BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s prime minister stepped down from amid widespread anti-government protests over Beirut port explosion last week that triggered public fury and mass protests.

In a brief televised speech, Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Monday that he is taking “a step back” so he can stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.”

He said, “I declare today the resignation of this government. May God protect Lebanon,” repeating the last phrase three times.

A brief while earlier, Diab's Cabinet resigned. The developments follow a weekend of anti-government protests in the wake of the Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut’s port that caused widespread destruction, killed at least 160 people and injured about 6,000 others.

Diab blamed corrupt politicians who preceded him for the “earthquake” that has hit Lebanon.

“They (political class) should have been ashamed of themselves because their corruption is what has led to this disaster that had been hidden for seven years,” he added.

Prime Minster Hassan Diab headed to the presidential palace to submit the Cabinet’s group resignation, said Health Minister Hamad Hassan. It follows a weekend of anti-government protests in the wake of the Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut's port that caused widestpread destruction, killed at least 160 people and injured about 6,000 others.

The moment typified Lebanon’s political dilemma. Since October, there have been mass demonstrations demanding the departure of the entire sectarian-based leadership over entrenched corruption, incompetence and mismanagement.

But the ruling oligarchy has held onto power for so long — since the end of the civil war in 1990 — that it is difficult to find a credible political figure not tainted by connections to them.

Although Diab’s resignation had appeared inevitable after the catastrophe, he seemed unwilling to leave and only two days ago made a televised speech in which he offered to stay on for two months to allow for various factions to agree on a roadmap for reforms. But the pressure from within his own Cabinet proved to be too much.

Diab’s government was formed after his predecessor, Saad Hariri, stepped down in October in response to the demonstrations. It took months of bickering among the leadership factions before they settled on Diab.

His government, which was supported by Hezbollah and its allies and seen as one-sided, was basically doomed from the start, tasked with meeting demands for reform but made up of all the factions that reformers want out.

Now the process must start again, with Diab’s government in a caretaker role as the same factions debate a new one.

“I hope that the caretaking period will not be long because the country cannot take that. Lets hope a new government will be formed quickly,” Public Works Minister Michel Najjar told reporters. “An effective government is the least we need to get out of this crisis.”

The weekend protests saw clashes with security forces firing tear gas at protesters.

The explosion is believed to have been caused by a fire that ignited a 2,750-ton stockpile of highly volatile ammonium nitrate. The material had been stored at the port since 2013 with few safeguards despite numerous warnings of the danger.

The result was a disaster Lebanese blame squarely on their leadership’s corruption and neglect. Losses from the catastrophic blast are estimated to be between $10 billion to $15 billion, with nearly 300,000 people left homeless.

The last decision taken by Diab’s government before its resignation was to refer the case of the explosion to the Supreme Judicial Council, which handles crimes infringing on Lebanon’s national security as well as political and state security crimes. The Supreme Judicial Council is Lebanon’s top judicial body.

A judge on Monday questioned the heads of the country’s security agencies. Public Prosecutor Ghassan El Khoury questioned Maj. Gen. Tony Saliba, the head of State Security, according to state-run National News Agency. It gave no further details, but other generals are scheduled to be questioned.

About 20 people have been detained after the blast, including the head of Lebanon’s customs department and his predecessor, as well as the head of the port. Dozens of people have been questioned, including two former Cabinet ministers, according to government officials.

Iran, meanwhile, expressed concern that Western countries and their allies might exploit anger over the explosion to pursue their political interests. Iran supports the Hezbollah militant group, which along with its allies dominates the government and parliament.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said “it is natural for people to be frustrated.” But he said it would be “unacceptable if some individuals, groups and foreign countries use the incident as a pretext for their purposes and intentions.”

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz drew a line Monday between the blast and claims that Hezbollah stores its rockets and weapons deep inside civilian areas.

While he did not accuse Hezbollah and its arms of being linked to the blast, Gantz said villages and towns across Lebanon were packed with Hezbollah arms that, if set off — whether by Israeli operations or by accident — would destroy homes. He said Hezbollah was Lebanon’s biggest problem.

Iran on Saturday said it detained an Iranian-American leader of a little-known California-based militant opposition group for allegedly planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry also alleged Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran planned other attacks around the Islamic Republic amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. over its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

It was unclear how the 65-year-old Sharmahd, whom Iran accused of running the opposition group's Tondar militant wing, ended up detained by intelligence officials. The Intelligence Ministry called it a "complex operation," without elaborating. It published a purported picture of Sharmahd, blindfolded, on its website.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi later appeared on state TV, saying Sharmahd had been arrested in Iran, without elaborating.

Requests for comment sent by email to the Glendora-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran were not immediately answered and a telephone number for the group no longer worked.

The U.S. State Department, which mentioned how Sharmahd earlier had been targeted for assassination in a recent report called "Outlaw Regime: A Chronicle of Iran's Destructive Activities," acknowledged reports of his detention.

"The Iranian regime has a long history of detaining Iranians and foreign nationals on spurious charges," the State Department said in a statement. "We urge Iran to be fully transparent and abide by all international legal standards."

Iranian state television broadcast a report on Sharmahd's arrest, linking him to the 2008 bombing of the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Shiraz. It also said his group was behind a 2010 bombing at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran that wounded several people.

The report also alleged without providing evidence that Tondar, or "Thunder" in Farsi, plotted attacks on a dam and planned to use cyanide bombs at Tehran's annual book fair.

State TV later aired footage of Sharmahd interspersed with footage from the moment of the 2008 explosion at the Shiraz mosque. Sharmahd's face appeared swollen and the style of the footage resembled one of what a rights group has identified as over 350 coerced confessions aired by the broadcaster over the last decade.

The Intelligence Ministry has not said what charges Sharmahd will face. Prisoners earlier accused in the same attack were sentenced to death and executed.

The Kingdom Assembly of Iran, known in Farsi as Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran, and Tondar seek to restore Iran's monarchy, which ended when the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country in 1979 just before its Islamic Revolution. The group's founder disappeared in the mid-2000s.

Iranian intelligence operatives in the past have used family members and other tricks to lure targets back to Iran or friendly countries to be captured. An alleged Iranian government operative who allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill Sharmahd disappeared in 2010 before facing trial in California, likely having returned to Iran.

A 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable from London later published by WikiLeaks shows that a Voice of America commentator said that same operative earlier had been in contact with him. British anti-terror police later warned the commentator that he "had been targeted by the Iranian regime," the cable said.

The two cases marked "a clear escalation in the regime's attempts to intimidate critics outside its borders, and could have a chilling effect on journalists, academics and others in the West who until recently felt little physical threat from the regime," the cable said.

Sharmahd last appeared in an online livestream video on Dec. 29, according to his group's website, speaking in Farsi while sitting in a black chair in front of a black background.

"We are not only seeking the liberation of the homeland, but we are also moving towards a special direction, and that is to be Iranian," Sharmahd said at one point in the video. "Because we have heard that once upon a time some people were living in the region who were able to build an empire."

While overshadowed by other exiled opposition groups, Iran reportedly brought up the Kingdom Assembly multiple times while negotiating the terms of the 2015 deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi reacted to the news by criticizing the U.S. for allowing Sharmahd and others to live in America.

The U.S. "must be responsible for supporting terrorist groups which are inside of this country and carry out and lead terrorist acts against the Iranian people," state TV quoted Mousavi as saying.

A statement attributed to Tondar claimed the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010 by a remote-control bomb, though it later said it wasn't responsible. Suspicion long has fallen on Israel for a string of assassinations targeting scientists amid concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears could be used to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran long has maintained its program is for peaceful purposes.

Sharmahd's reported arrest comes as tensions remain inflamed by President Donald Trump's 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal. A series of incidents last year were capped by a U.S. drone strike in January killing a top Iranian general in Baghdad. Iran responded by launching a ballistic missile attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq that injured dozens.

Israeli researchers have invented a method to utilize watermelons for fuel production, according to the Israeli news website Ynet.

Watermelon residues can be used to produce ethanol, a biological alternative fuel for vehicles, found a new study conducted by the University of Haifa (Oranim), reports Xinhua.

The researchers produced ethanol from an Israeli watermelon strain, grown only for its seeds, as part of the nut industry.

The red (flesh) and green (rind) parts, which together make up 97 percent of the watermelon's weight, are thrown in the fields as waste that remains unused.

During the harvest period, the researchers collected dozens of watermelons of the seed strain and fermented their juice into ethanol.

According to the researchers, bioethanol, and biofuels in general, reduces dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil whose reserves are dwindling, and using them generates widespread greenhouse gas emissions.

Ethanol is also the main ingredient of medicinal disinfectants, such as hand sanitizers, so this development could also be useful in the current coronavirus period.

The researchers also found that watermelon waste could be used to produce lycopene, a dietary supplement sold as an antioxidant.

Hundreds of Israelis poured into the streets recently against Netanyahu and his perceived failure to handle the country’s deepening economic crisis.

The protest sparked after 34-year-old Nimrod Gross arrived on the street in attending his first-ever public protest with the blue-and-white Israeli flag protesting the harsh economic fallout from the coronavirus.

Gross and his flag were pummeled by powerful police water cannons. The moment was captured by an Associated Press photographer, quickly becoming an emblematic image of the public outcry generating the wave of demonstrations sweeping the country against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports AP.

Netanyahu, standing trial for corruption, has tried to dismiss the youthful protesters as radicals and anarchists flouting public health restrictions while he marshals the country through a national emergency.

But the thousands now taking to the streets several times a week come from all walks of life, and with unemployment surging to record numbers, they are demanding a reckoning from the longtime leader.

“I feel like I grew up on this dream that is blowing up in our faces,” said Gross. “You do everything that society demands of you, and then suddenly you are illegitimate.”

“Corona is just this magnifying glass that enhances everything that is already wrong with this country. We’ve reached this critical mass where we just have to do something,” said Gross. “We just don’t believe them anymore. They have no shame.”

Netanyahu, who managed to remain in power after three inconclusive elections by convincing his chief rival to join him in an “emergency” government designed specifically to tackle the pandemic, has borne most of the brunt.

His government has particularly been criticized for providing too little assistance to hundreds of thousands of laid-off Israelis and struggling self-employed workers and business owners. The government has also been accused of issuing confusing and contradictory guidelines that have angered citizens.
 

Hundreds of Israelis poured into the streets recently against Netanyahu and his perceived failure to handle the country’s deepening economic crisis.

The protest sparked after 34-year-old Nimrod Gross arrived on the street in attending his first-ever public protest with the blue-and-white Israeli flag protesting the harsh economic fallout from the coronavirus.

Gross and his flag were pummeled by powerful police water cannons. The moment was captured by an Associated Press photographer, quickly becoming an emblematic image of the public outcry generating the wave of demonstrations sweeping the country against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports AP.

Netanyahu, standing trial for corruption, has tried to dismiss the youthful protesters as radicals and anarchists flouting public health restrictions while he marshals the country through a national emergency.

But the thousands now taking to the streets several times a week come from all walks of life, and with unemployment surging to record numbers, they are demanding a reckoning from the longtime leader.

“I feel like I grew up on this dream that is blowing up in our faces,” said Gross. “You do everything that society demands of you, and then suddenly you are illegitimate.”

“Corona is just this magnifying glass that enhances everything that is already wrong with this country. We’ve reached this critical mass where we just have to do something,” said Gross. “We just don’t believe them anymore. They have no shame.”

Netanyahu, who managed to remain in power after three inconclusive elections by convincing his chief rival to join him in an “emergency” government designed specifically to tackle the pandemic, has borne most of the brunt.

His government has particularly been criticized for providing too little assistance to hundreds of thousands of laid-off Israelis and struggling self-employed workers and business owners. The government has also been accused of issuing confusing and contradictory guidelines that have angered citizens.