Why Israel Is Not Likely To Bomb Beirut Airport In 2023

Israel intensified its air campaign against Iran in Syria in recent months by bombing the international airports in Damascus and Aleppo in response to Tehran flying military supplies into the country. It has also warned that it would attack Beirut Airport in neighboring Lebanon if Iran attempts to use that facility for smuggling arms to Hezbollah.

The New Year began in Syria with fresh explosions rocking Damascus International Airport. According to Syria’s state news agency, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out the strike with “barrages of missiles,” killing “two soldiers” and temporarily “putting Damascus Airport out of service.”

It wasn’t the first such strike against Syria’s main airport. On June 10, Israel launched an unprecedented attack against the facility, leaving at least eight craters on its main runways and putting the facility out of operation for two weeks. The IAF also targeted Aleppo International Airport in August and September. It launched the August strike mere hours after an Iranian cargo plane landed there.

According intelligence sources cited by Reuters, these strikes were in response to Iran’s increased use of airplanes for transporting weaponry to allied militias in Syria as transfers overland, which the IAF also frequently interdicts, became more difficult. Tehran has used its civilian airliners to transport small components for drones and precision-guided missiles. Components like these have helped Tehran’s main militia proxy Hezbollah markedly improve the accuracy of its large stockpile of missiles and rockets in Lebanon.

In December, Israel reportedly warned that it would also target Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport if Iran uses it to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah. An Israeli attack on that airport would be the first since Israel bombed it during the brief mid-2006 conflict with Hezbollah, also known as the Second Lebanon War, and could potentially ignite a Third Lebanon War or even a broader regional conflagration.

Is Iran, which faces an unprecedented protest movement and has already shown an increased willingness to deflect attention from its internal upheaval by lashing out abroad, really willing to risk igniting another war by flying arms directly into Lebanon?

On the other hand, is Israel, which has just sworn in an extremely far right government, also willing to risk another war with Hezbollah in Lebanon that could prove immensely destructive for both sides?

Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of the 2011 book Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel, believes that cooler heads will ultimately prevail.

“We have been down this road before,” he told me. “In summer 1999, there were reports that the Iranians were flying weapons directly to Hezbollah via Beirut Airport after then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad held up Iranian arms shipments at Damascus Airport.”

“Assad was signaling to the Israelis at the time that he had control over Hezbollah as Syria and Israel began moves to resume the peace process,” he said.

While Blanford doubts that Iran would directly airlift large weapons systems to Hezbollah via Beirut’s airport, he does not rule out Tehran flying in ammunition, missile components, and guidance systems.

He also estimates that Israel will continue focusing on striking Hezbollah and Iran-related targets in Syria as part of the air campaign that it launched a decade ago.

“I think the Israelis are probably content with hitting Hezbollah warehouses and convoys in Syria where they can operate with relative impunity and have done so since January 2013,” he said. “Attacking targets in Lebanon – whether the airport or elsewhere – significantly raises the threat of a broader conflict.”

More generally, Blanford anticipates that the “balance of terror” will “continue to hold” despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent return to power as head of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

“Netanyahu talks the talk, but he is too much of a politician to act recklessly,” he said. “We have seen him utter countless threats against Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah since first taking office in 1996, but he rarely acts on those threats.”

“The fact is that, regardless of the hawkishness of the Israeli government, no one wants to be the person responsible for triggering a war that will ravage Israel, kill potentially hundreds of soldiers and civilians, and shut the country down for the duration of the conflict.”