One of the halls at Beirut international airport. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'OLJ)
BEIRUT — Beirut Rafic Hariri Airport's director Fadi al-Hassan denied that Iran "reduced its flights to Beirut" over the past three months as claimed by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida on Friday.
Citing a high-ranking source in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)'s Quds Force, al-Jarida reported that Tehran "reduced its flights" to Beirut from four to two flights a week because "it fears that Israel may target its planes on the pretext that they carry weapons for Hezbollah in the event of a major military escalation."
Al-Jarida is an Arabic-language Kuwaiti daily newspaper founded in 2007.
Contacted by L'Orient Today, Hassan denied al-Jarida's claim without giving more information. The Iranian embassy in Beirut was not immediately available for comment.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in daily clashes since October in parallel with the Gaza war. Skirmishes at the Lebanese-Israeli border have escalated lately amid raising concerns of a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Last month, the British newspaper The Telegraph claimed that “Hezbollah is storing huge quantities of Iranian weapons, missiles and explosives in Beirut’s main civilian airport,” citing anonymous sources and “whistle-blowers.” Following that, Lebanon's caretaker Information Minister Ziad Makkari urged media outlets to condemn the report and to "expose the goals behind its publication at this particular time."
The same source cited by al-Jarida denied the Telegraph report, adding that the IRGC does not use the international airport to transfer weapons to Hezbollah, because the airport's "security is breached" and it is "exposed to spies."
The source, who currently oversees Hezbollah's logistics in the Quds Force, said that Hezbollah threatened Israel through the U.S. that if it hit Beirut airport, the party would respond by targeting Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. The newspaper did not specify the date of Hezbollah's threat. Meanwhile, a Hezbollah spokesperson told L'Orient Today that the equation of targeting Ben Gurion if Beirut's airport is attacked is not new.
Al-Jarida's source added that Tehran permitted Hezbollah to use some weapons that "had to be kept secret" if such a scenario happens, adding that "dozens of Hezbollah heavy missiles were locked on the coordinates of various points at Ben Gurion Airport a few days ago" and that "Hezbollah has the necessary capabilities to destroy, disable or jam Israeli air defense batteries, including the Iron Dome, before carrying out such an attack."
Finally, citing the same source, the report claimed that Hezbollah has recently acquired "air defense systems that can detect the movements of Israeli planes at a radius of 200 kilometers" and can strike, "from now on," Israeli aircraft "before or during their entry into Lebanese airspace." The source added that "Iran has recently increased the amount of missiles sent to Hezbollah, especially medium-range surface-to-air missiles." L'Orient Today could not independently verify these claims.