Beirut Airport fires dozens of Hezbollah-linked employees

Beirut Airport was long used to smuggle Hezbollah weapons, Lebanese officials admitted.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Numerous Beirut International Airport employees with ties to Hezbollah were dismissed from their positions in recent weeks, signaling Lebanon’s commitment to reining in the terror group, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

In addition, senior Lebanese security and military officials told the outlet that workers who had facilitated Hezbollah-linked smuggling at the transportation hub were arrested.

“You can feel the difference,” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told the outlet. “We’re doing better on smuggling for the first time in the contemporary history of Lebanon.”

Ghassan Hasbani, a former deputy prime minister and politician in an anti-Hezbollah party, said that the era of state indifference to Hezbollah activity is now over.

Previously, authorities turned a “purposeful blind eye” to the illicit shipment of Hezbollah weapons and money via the airport, Hasbani told the Journal.

Beirut International Airport was “a main port of entry for supporting whatever para-state activities were happening,” he added.

A senior Trump administration official, who is involved in supervising the ongoing truce between Lebanon and Israel, said the arrests and mass dismissals were a sign of real reform on Lebanon’s part.

“There is reason for hope here,” the official said. “It has only been six or seven months, and we have stepped to a place that I am not sure I thought was achievable back in November.”

During the Israel-Hezbollah war, Israel repeatedly threatened to strike Beirut Airport, due to its use as a terror smuggling hub.

Additionally, Israeli intelligence found that the airport had a large cache of Hezbollah weapons.

In December 2024, during a media tour meant to disprove the existence of the weapons stored at the airport, Lebanese ministers refused to allow journalists to enter a specific cargo hangar at the airport.