As Lebanon seeks to disprove claims of Hezbollah arsenal in airport, reporters denied full access

Lebanese officials offered journalists and ambassadors tours of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in an attempt to refute claims, made by the British newspaper The Telegraph, that this site was acting as a storage facility for weapons, according to international media reports from earlier this week.

Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, Tourism Minister Walid Nassar, and Information Minister Ziad Makary all participated in the tours. 

Habib reportedly claimed that “the airport is safe and that these rumors are part of Israel’s attempts to justify its attacks on Lebanon,” according to LBC International.

“With this article, we’ve gone from [Israeli] airspace violations to a psychological war through written articles,” Hamieh claimed, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“And now we’ve shown the falsehood of those articles,” he told the group. “They are silly articles.”

Stones left unturned

Despite denying the claims made by the Telegraph, and organizing a tour of the airport facility to disprove the existence of Hezbollah weapons on airport property, the Algemeiner reported that journalists were prevented from accessing a key cargo depot. 

“Beirut airport security prevented journalists from entering the cargo center at the airport,” Al-Hadath journalist Ghinwa Yateem reported after the tour concluded. The journalist also claimed  that Lebanese officials “did not let us film or enter certain areas.”

Additionally, reporters were shown a nearly empty warehouse which is supposedly responsible for holding 20% of the import traffic, according to the Algemeiner. 

International parties touring the airport 

Members of the European Union, Germany, Spain, Egypt, China, India and Pakistan attended the viewing, according to the Los Angeles Times. Additionally, a representative from UNIFIL forces also attended the tour, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The parties reportedly saw the air cargo and import goods centers, and the fence surrounding the airport perimeter where they were introduced to the security and customs procedures. 

Accusations of weapons being held at the airport

Anonymous airport workers claimed to the Telegraph that Hezbollah was holding a weapons cache at the airport.

One worker told the Telegraph that in November “unusual” boxes arrived from Iran and that a high-ranking Hezbollah official was overseeing the customs shipments.

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