Hezbollah’s Beirut Airport Powder Keg

There is a disaster waiting to happen in Beirut. Last June, The Daily Telegraph reported that Hezbollah was stockpiling explosives and weapons in warehouses at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport. Airport personnel had leaked the information to the newspaper, concerned about their safety. Airlines have recently canceled their flights to Beirut, but only out of fear of the looming conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that could engulf the airport, too. 

Yet the risk facing their aircraft and passengers is not from conflict alone. Weapons stockpiles stored a few yards away from passenger aircraft are a safety concern in peacetime, too. The specter of war may come and go, but if Hezbollah continues to use Beirut’s airport as a weapons depot, sooner or later, tragedy may strike. 

With most flights suspended, international airlines and international aviation authorities should now pressure Lebanon to ensure that flights do not resume until the airport’s exclusive civilian use is conclusively proven and guaranteed. The European Union, too, which in 2020 spent €3.5 million to bolster Beirut’s airport security and recently pledged €1 billion to help Lebanon’s fledgling economy, should make sure its taxpayers’ money has not been wasted. 

To be sure, Lebanese authorities have announced a lawsuit against the paper, while Hezbollah denies any wrongdoing. The day after The Telegraph broke the news, Lebanon’s minister of transport and Hezbollah member of parliament, Ali Hamieh, immediately sought to dismiss allegations and discredit the report by summoning journalists and diplomats to the airport. The tour was supposed to show transparency and allay concerns. It did the opposite. Hamie and his docile subordinates ended up blocking access to some facilities, only increasing concerns that the reports were genuine.

So why did it take until the recent clashes with Israel increased for international airlines to suspend their flights to Beirut? 

It was only when both Hezbollah and Iran threatened to retaliate against Israel for its elimination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in late July that most international airlines canceled flights to Beirut. The fear of getting their aircraft and passengers trapped in Lebanon during the conflict, with the airport becoming a possible target, is understandable. But should the danger of a massive explosion at a major international air hub like Beirut have not been reason enough to suspend flights long before escalation appeared on the horizon?

Poorly secured, highly inflammable materials exploded in Beirut’s maritime port on August 3, 2020, killing more than 200 people, injuring thousands more, and causing extensive and costly damage to the city. A powder keg of ammunition and explosives stored in warehouses at an airport could turn it into an inferno, causing even more damage if aircraft are nearby.

The threat to passenger and aircraft security is certainly not something that Hezbollah wants anyone to consider, not because there is nothing to see, but rather because Hezbollah does not want anyone to see anything. 

For years now, Hezbollah has suborned the airport to its needs. Case in point: While international airlines are now avoiding the Mediterranean, the Iranian carrier Mahan Air—which the U.S. Department of Treasury has sanctioned for transporting weapons, militias, and illicit procurement on Iran’s behalf—is flying into Beirut at least weekly sometimes twice a week. Mahan’s airlift into Beirut is the backbone of Iran’s supply line to its ally Hezbollah, and it is much safer than deliveries through Syria, which Israel’s air force has regularly bombed with increasing precision and lethality—especially after October 7, 2023, when Hezbollah joined Hamas in its onslaught against Israel’s civilian population.

While everyone focuses on the fallout for the airport from a looming war, focusing on its lack of safety in peacetime should be paramount. Hezbollah has long compromised Beirut’s airport security with its nefarious machinations and shady dealings. There will be neither an easy recovery nor any accountability if an accident were to happen, as with the tragic explosion at the Beirut port four years ago.

Pressure from international carriers, aviation authorities, and Western governments should come to bear on Lebanese authorities to remove Hezbollah from its operations. Averting disaster requires confronting Hezbollah, not pretending the only threat confronting Lebanon is war with Israel.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute in Washington, DC, focusing on foreign policy and national security.

Image: Ali Chehade Farhat / Shutterstock.com.