IS LEBANON STORING WEAPONS AT BEIRUT AIRPORT?!
June 24, 2024Lebanon organized a tour for media outlets and diplomats around Beirut’s international airport, one day after a British publication report claimed that Hezbollah was storing weapons at the facility.
Various media outlets and diplomats were invited by Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh to inspect various areas at Rafik Hariri International Airport to refute The Telegraph’s report on Sunday.
The publication said that Hezbollah is storing missiles and rockets at the airport, where “whistleblowers” had reported the arrival of “unusually big boxes.”
Footage from local media showed Hamieh along with Foreign Minister Abdullah Bouhabib and Information Minister Ziad Makary touring the facility as well as cargo and customs buildings along with ambassadors and journalists.
“The airport is a public facility that concerns all Lebanese, and it is the image of Lebanon. We are on the verge of a promising summer. Therefore, the intentions of the Telegraph article are very clear,” Makary was reported as saying by the National News Agency (NNA).
He added that it was not “possible for Hezbollah to store missiles in a place where world ambassadors [would] enter.”
Israel has for years accused Hezbollah of keeping precision rockets and missiles in different installations throughout Lebanon, including on a site near Beirut airport.
Hezbollah denies these accusations.
After the report, Hamieh held a news conference to address the claims.
“I am holding this press conference to clarify that everything that has been written in The Telegraph is false and to say that there are no weapons entering or leaving Beirut airport,” Hamieh told journalists on Sunday.
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English Script:
Gavin Lee: I want to go first to Beirut actually, because there’s two issues there, two stories. One is Beirut airport and allegations that it’s being used to store explosives for missiles for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It’s an investigation by the UK Telegraph newspaper quoting whistleblowers claiming Lebanon’s main civilian airport, has received a huge cache of Iranian made weapons being used against the IDF. Lebanese officials have been speaking in the past few hours about the claims. Let’s go there, let’s bring in our correspondent Rawad Taha. Good to talk to you as always. Just bring us up to date with what’s going on with these allegations.
Rawad Taha: So earlier today, we saw the British newspaper, The Telegraph, issuing or releasing an article where it mentioned that whistleblowers and sources have confirmed that Beirut’s airport has been used as a transit and as a storage facility for Hezbollah’s weapons, in particular they mentioned Iranian made Falaq artillery rockets, Fateh short range missiles, M-600 long range ballistic missiles, anti-tank and laser guided ammunition, along with other explosive material. Now, this is not the first time that we hear such allegations targeting the Beirut airport. In particular, we saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few years ago highlighting that an area very close and adjacent to the Beirut airport has been used by Hezbollah for storing weapons coming directly from Iran on Iranian planes. Now back then, during that time, those claims were refuted by Lebanese officials and the Lebanese officials planned an escorted visit to the airport and its facilities for foreign media and for ambassadors and foreign personnel. And this is also the case today. So only just a few minutes before our conversation, the Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh dismissed that article by the British newspaper, and he actually labeled it as ridiculous. He said that the airport is completely safe and that no storage facilities at the airport are being used by Hezbollah in particular for storing any weapons. And he also invited the foreign press and the ambassadors to actually visit the airport tomorrow, Monday morning at 10 a.m. and explore all the buildings and underground facilities of the airport to make sure that there is no weapons stored in any of the facilities.
