Beirut —
Lebanese government officials toured the country’s only international airport on Monday with more than 100 diplomats and journalists, seeking to refute a British newspaper report that the facility was being used to store weapons for Hezbollah.
The unusual tour came after a Telegraph article published on Sunday quoted an anonymous airport official as claiming that there was a Hezbollah arsenal at the airport, including artillery, ballistic missiles, anti-tank missiles and explosives.
An unsigned Telegraph article reported that a Beirut airport employee witnessed an “unusually large box” arrive on a flight from Iran in November, and that a senior Hezbollah official was overseeing the customs clearance process.
The report, released amid rising tensions between paramilitary groups and Israel, triggered a flurry of denials by Lebanese officials and raised concerns that Israel would use it to justify an attack on the airport.
This comes at a sensitive time for the country: Since October, when Hezbollah launched a “Support Front” aimed at relieving pressure on Hamas, the Iran-backed group and Israel have been exchanging near-daily attacks on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
At least 481 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah operatives but also 94 civilians, according to counts by monitoring groups and media outlets. Israeli officials say 17 soldiers have been killed in Israel.
Hostilities between the two sides have mainly taken place along the border but fighting has intensified in recent weeks, leaving many worried that one miscalculation could lead to a wider attack.
Lebanon’s caretaker transport minister, Ali Hamieh, an ally of Hezbollah, dismissed the Telegraph report as “absurd,” saying the airport’s cargo operations comply with international standards. He said discussions had already begun with other parts of the Lebanese government to launch legal action against the paper.
The tour was attended by representatives of diplomatic missions from the European Union, Germany, Spain, Egypt, China, India and Pakistan, among others.
As part of the tour, the diplomats and journalists visited two cargo areas at the airport, which Hamieh said are where all cargo is gathered, including the shipment from Iran mentioned in the Telegraph report.
“With this article we have moved from violating (Israeli) airspace to psychological warfare through text,” he said at a news conference after the visit, referring to Israel’s frequent military flights into Lebanese airspace.
“And now we have proven those articles to be false,” he told the group. “They are ridiculous articles.”
Ihab Hamada, a member of Hezbollah’s political wing in Lebanon’s parliament, told the state news agency that the group does not need the airport for its weapons.
The official Israeli Foreign Ministry account on social media platform X retweeted the Telegraph article, commenting that “in normal countries, airports are used for travel.”
Israel has targeted Beirut’s airport before: in 1968, Israeli special forces destroyed 12 passenger planes and two cargo planes on the airport tarmac in retaliation for Palestinian attacks on Israeli aircraft.
In 2006, on the same day that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, Israel bombed the airport and cut off all sea access to the county.
During the tour, the journalists and diplomats were shown around a large warehouse, where airport officials looked perplexed as they walked among jumbled boxes and floor-to-ceiling shelves.
An airport security official who responded to questions about the reports, but declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, insisted everything at the airport was normal.
“Obviously, we have not seen anything like what is written in these reports,” the officer said.
Richard Mujaise, president of Middle East Aviation Ground Handling (MEAG), the state-owned company that handles all cargo at the airport, said the airport’s cargo center is accredited by several international organizations, including the European Commission and the International Air Transport Association, and that multiple security agencies are involved in screening cargo entering the country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Israeli military would scale back operations in the Gaza Strip and shift its focus to northern Israel to secure the area and allow the return of some 60,000 Israelis who fled the border area. Israeli bombardment in Lebanon has displaced some 100,000 people.
“If it’s politically possible to do that, great,” Netanyahu said. “If it’s not possible, we’ll do it in another way, but we’ll bring everyone from the north and the south back to their homes.”
