Hezbollah’s Collaborators in the Government and the Story of Beirut Airport

Lebanon, in recent days, was thrown into turmoil after The Telegraph published a report exposing Hezbollah’s use of Beirut International Airport to smuggle and store weapons coming from Iran. 

The report attracted much criticism, as many in Lebanon saw it as serving Israel’s interests by legitimizing the airport as a military target at a time of rising fears of war between Israel and Hezbollah. The fact that the report was not signed by any author and was based on the testimony of an anonymous whistleblower working in the airport was another factor that contributed to this criticism.

Nevertheless, those who follow Lebanon and the modus operandi of Hezbollah on its soil, were not surprised by its content, as Hezbollah's unchecked special access to Lebanon’s only international airport is old news. In May 2008, the Lebanese government, headed at the time by Hezbollah's rivals, tried to thwart the organization’s use of the airport by dismantling the party's ground surveillance network and dismissing the airport security commander, Brig. Gen. Wafiq Choucair, who was known to be affiliated with Hezbollah. This attempt was answered by an aggressive military response by Hezbollah against the government and its political rivals, which was almost a military coup, that resulted in the government backing down from its attempt.

In 2016, it was Israel that formally informed the U.N. Security Council members that, according to information obtained by Israeli intelligence agencies, Hezbollah was using commercial flights landing at Beirut airport from Iran to smuggle military equipment into Lebanon. This move led to no response or change. Two years later, in 2018, an American media outlet quoted “Western intelligence sources” who repeated the same allegations, but once again, Lebanese authorities denied Hezbollah's use of the airport.

Hezbollah’s exploitation of the Beirut airport is no different from its unchecked control over the land border crossing into Syria or its involvement in the activities of Beirut’s Sea Port, which led the organization to actively sabotage the investigation into the 2020 catastrophic blast in the port, as such a probe would expose its illegal activities. 

A day after The Telegraph report was published, Lebanon’s transportation minister, Ali Hamieh, rejected the allegation and organized a public tour of the airport's facilities to bolster his position. However, this public relations stunt did not go as planned, as the journalists who took part in the tour refused to continue after they were not allowed to go into the cargo terminal.

The facts that Ali Hamieh himself is one of two Hezbollah ministers in the current government and that he belongs to a well-known Shia family which counts Talal Hamieh, who holds a senior role in Hezbollah, explain his extraordinary efforts to protect Hezbollah and deflect the report regarding its illegal use of the airport.

It should be noted that Ali Hamieh is not the first Hezbollah-affiliated minister to hold such a public tour to deflect allegations against the organization. In 2018, it was Gebran Bassil who, as foreign minister, first used this tool after Israel publicly exposed Hezbollah’s military activity under civilian cover. As in this week's tour, the 2018 tour was presented as proof that Israel’s allegations are false. 

Hezbollah’s access to Lebanon’s land, air, and sea border crossings is a result of the weak government in Beirut and reflects the formal state institutions’ inability to enforce sovereignty over their territory. This disturbing reality has intensified over the years, as Hezbollah's political power grows, and the organization has become part of the government itself. The Telegraph report on the Beirut International Airport has illustrated this reality very clearly.

Lebanon’s government’s inability to prevent Hezbollah’s actions, let alone its active participation in the coverup efforts of the organization's terror activities on its soil, are long-standing dynamics familiar to all international parties involved in the efforts to prevent further escalation between Hezbollah and Israel. 

From Israel's perspective, the state of Lebanon has become an accomplice to Hezbollah’s terror activities. Lebanon’s infrastructures are de-facto part of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure; Lebanon’s soil is usurped by Hezbollah to launch cross-border attacks against northern Israel, and government officials are facilitating the organization’s illegal terrorism. Under these conditions, it might be worth changing Hezbollah’s formal designation as a non-state actor and considering sanctioning Lebanon as a state sponsor of terrorism, as this is what it has become.

Dror Doron is a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) focusing on Hezbollah and Lebanon. He spent nearly two decades as a senior analyst in the Office of Israel’s Prime Minister. Dror is on Twitter @DrorDoron