Amid growing criticism for Lebanon's dire economic situation, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Monday repeated calls for the Lebanese cabinet to seek a US sanctions waiver to import Iranian fuel and alleviate crippling shortages.
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Nasrallah said the government should make power shortages a priority, adding the total blackout that occurred on Saturday when Lebanon's two largest power plants ground to a halt was like a "clinical death" for the country.
Lebanon's power supplies were back to normal on Sunday after the blackout, the country's Energy Ministry said.
The closure piled further hardship on Lebanese struggling with job losses, soaring prices and hunger wrought by the country's worsening financial meltdown.
The ministry said it had received central bank approval for $100 million in credit to issue fuel import tenders for electricity generation, adding the country's grid had resumed supplying the same amount of electricity as before the complete outage.
Lebanon has been paralyzed by an economic crisis that deepened as supplies of imported fuel have dried up. The Lebanese currency has fallen by 90% since 2019.
Many Lebanese normally rely on private generators that run on diesel, although that is in short supply.
Making matters worse, meanwhile, a huge blaze erupted in a storage tank at one of Lebanon's main oil facilities in the country's south. The fire sent orange flames and a thick black column of smoke into the sky.
Energy Minister Walid Fayad said the fire broke out when workers were transferring gasoline from one storage tank to another in the coastal town of Zahrani. He said nearly 250,000 liters (66,000 gallons) of gasoline were burnt during the blaze, which lasted more than three hours. No one was reported hurt.
"Let the government ask for a sanctions waiver and let the Lebanese companies go and buy ... and then we will withdraw from this file completely," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
The Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organization has been coordinating Iranian shipments of fuel oil and gasoline for Lebanon since August as shortages spread amid an economic meltdown, despite US sanctions on Iranian oil sales.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said the Iranian shipments constitute a breach of his country's sovereignty.
Iran sends the fuel oil shipments organized by Hezbollah to the port of Baniyas in Syria and from there they are transported by truck to Lebanon. Syria is also under US sanctions.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, on a visit to Beirut last week, said his country was ready to build two power plants in Lebanon, one in Beirut and the other in the south of the country, in a period of 18 months.
On Monday Nasrallah urged the cabinet to respond to his offer.
One resident of west Beirut told Israel Hayom on Monday that the "energy crisis is insufferable, and in the past year has only worsened with more frequent blackouts… Many Lebanese people know Hezbollah's promises are baseless, and that even when Hezbollah does help – they only help their fellow Shiites."
Hanan, a resident of Beirut, said: "Government corruption has caused this situation. Hezbollah, too, bears much of the blame. This organization behaves as if Lebanon is the private property of Nasrallah and his patrons in Iran. Nasrallah promised that oil tankers and fuel trucks would arrive from Iran. Thus far, we haven't seen Nasrallah fulfill his promises. Lebanon needs a serious root canal in order to stabilize."
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