Purge of Hezbollah from Beirut airport satisfying Israeli, US officials — report

Lebanon has conducted a major overhaul of security at its sole international airport, in Beirut, to prevent smuggling by Hezbollah, satisfying Israeli and US officials and giving them hope that the government will take full control over the country’s ports of entry from the terror group, according to a new report.

Airport staff linked to Hezbollah have been fired, smugglers have been detained, and new surveillance mechanisms using AI are being deployed at Rafik Hariri International Airport, which is situated in an area of southern Beirut that is controlled by the Iran-backed terror group, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

In one recent achievement, Lebanese security thwarted an attempt to smuggle over 22 kilograms (50 pounds) of gold to Hezbollah through the airport, a senior security official told the newspaper.

“You can feel the difference,” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said. “We’re doing better on smuggling for the first time in the contemporary history of Lebanon.”

Salam, who was appointed by Lebanon’s new president in January, was also cited as saying that Hezbollah had tried to block plans to construct a second airport for commercial and cargo flights in an area outside the terror group’s control, near the Syrian border in northern Lebanon. The second airport could also serve as an alternative should the Beirut airport be shuttered due to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets there, the newspaper said.

While Israeli and US officials reportedly felt there was still work to be done in Lebanon, a senior US official told the newspaper that “there is reason for hope here.”

The official, who works for the mechanism overseeing the implementation of the November 27 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement, said “it has only been six or seven months, and we have stepped to a place that I am not sure I thought was achievable back in November.”

Senior Lebanese security and military officials cited by the Journal said no planes are now exempt from security checks, while flights from Iran have been suspended since February.

The suspension, triggered by an IDF claim that Iran was smuggling cash to Hezbollah aboard civilian flights, set off massive riots by supporters of the terror group who demanded Iranian flights be let in. At one point, rioters attacked a convoy led by a top officer from the international peacekeeping force UNIFIL, wounding him.

Meanwhile, the IDF has continued to target Hezbollah operatives and arms caches in southern Lebanon, and maintains some posts in the region after withdrawing from most of it in February.

The terror group was required to vacate the area under the November 27 ceasefire agreement, to be replaced by Lebanon’s military and UNIFIL. Last month, an official said the Lebanese military had dismantled over 90% of Hezbollah’s infrastructure near the border with Israel.

Ibrahim Mousawi, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon’s parliament, told the Journal that while the terror group sustained heavy losses, it had ways to rearm, saying, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” He also said allegations that Hezbollah controlled the airport were exaggerated: “We are part of the system, just like any other Lebanese constituency.”

However, Lebanon’s former deputy prime minister Ghassan Hasbani said the airport had been “a main port of entry for supporting whatever para-state activities were happening.”

Hasbani, who now represents an anti-Hezbollah bloc in the Lebanese parliament, said authorities had turned “a purposeful blind eye” to the terror group’s use of the Beirut airport. “In the absence of international attention and pressure to do something about it, nothing much was done.”

Hezbollah’s standing in domestic politics has taken a blow in the wake of the fighting that began when the terror group attacked Israel on October 8, 2023 — a day after fellow Iran-backed group Hamas stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.

Some 60,000 residents of northern Israel were displaced by Hezbollah’s near-daily attacks. In a bid to secure the residents’ return, the IDF stepped up operations in Lebanon in September, decimating Hezbollah’s leadership.

The fighting killed thousands of people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The IDF estimated it had killed some 3,500 Hezbollah operatives.

Hezbollah also took a hit with the ouster in December of its powerful ally in Syria. the Iran-backed president Bashar Al-Assad. The ouster cut off a land route for arms smuggling from Iran to Lebanon.

In January, Lebanon’s parliament elected US-backed President Joseph Aoun, ending a two-year vacancy in the post. Aoun, previously the commander of Lebanon’s armed forces, has vowed to maintain a state monopoly on arms — a veiled threat against Hezbollah, the only armed group not to surrender its arms to the Lebanese state when the country’s 15-year civil war ended in 1990. Aoun has also demanded that Israel vacate its remaining posts in southern Lebanon.

You’re a dedicated reader

Join Our Community

Join Our Community

Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this