Hezbollah Storing Iranian Arms at Beirut Airport Raises Alarms

Lebanon's Hezbollah is amassing a large cache of Iranian weapons at Beirut’s main civilian airport, Rafic Hariri International Airport, whistleblowers say.

The weapons stored include Falaq unguided artillery rockets, Fateh-110 and M-600 short-range missiles, and other advanced munitions, according to whistleblowers quoted by The Telegraph on Sunday.

There are also reports of the presence of AT-14 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, Burkan short-range ballistic missiles, and RDX explosives.

The situation at the airport, located just four miles from Beirut's city center, has escalated concerns that it could become a military target for Israel amid rising tensions between the two sides.

One airport worker revealed the arrival of "mysterious large boxes from Iran," marking a concerning uptick in arms storage that coincides with heightened regional tensions. The worker expressed fears reminiscent of the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, suggesting that a similar incident could occur at the airport due to such activities.

Insiders report that Hezbollah's influence over airport operations has visibly increased, with the group's key figures, like its second-in-command Wafiq Safa, being regularly spotted managing affairs directly, intensifying the threat of retaliation by Israeli forces.

Later on Sunday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated Transport Minister Ali Hamieh held a press conference at the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport to dismiss what he called "ridiculous" allegations by whistleblowers that the airport is used by Hezbollah to store Iranian weapons.

He invited journalists and ambassadors to take a tour of the airport's facilities on Monday morning to prove "there's nothing to hide".

He also said that his office is in the process of filing a lawsuit against Telegraph.

Hezbollah, Iran's most formidable proxy, funded, trained, and armed by Tehran, continues its daily skirmishes with Israeli forces amid the ongoing Gaza conflict. The northern border conflict marks the most severe since the Second Lebanon War.

Since the October 7 invasion, Hezbollah, along with Iran's proxies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Gaza, has supported Hamas by launching missiles towards all of Israel's borders.