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Lebanon takes foreign diplomats on tour of Hizbollah 'missile sites' as it calls Netanyahu's bluff
“As you can all see, there is no secret Hizbollah weapons warehouse here,” Gebran Bassil, Lebanon’s foreign minister, said wryly as he gestured down below the empty stands of the al-Ahed football stadium.
Just four days earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had publicly accused the Lebanese group of hiding precision missiles in the heart of the capital, Beirut.
“Here’s a picture that’s worth a thousand missiles,” Mr Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly as he held up a satellite image with three points marked with red dots. “Israel knows what you’re doing, Israel knows where you’re doing it, and Israel will not let you get away with it,” he warned.
In an unprecedented move, Mr Bassil decided to call his bluff on Monday, offering foreign ambassadors and journalists a tour of each of the sites in question.
“We are used to Israel fabricating information (...) but this time Israel lied in the presence of delegates from all over the world, which is why we took this extraordinary measure today,” Mr Bassil told the 73 envoys and reporters gathered.
Bemused football players looked on as Lebanon’s entire diplomat and press core descended on the stadium and began searching every corner of the pitch, seemingly looking for evidence that could prove Mr Netanyahu’s accusations right.
If there ever was any weapons silo here, there was certainly nothing to be found on Monday. Either Mr Netanyahu stood before the General Assembly with faulty or outdated intelligence, or perhaps the stash was moved - undetected - in the days since his Thursday address.
“I live just over there and come to practise every day,” said one of the local team’s players. “I think we would have seen a bunch of missiles being transported,” he smiled.
The Telegraph asked Alexander Zaspykin, Russia’s envoy to Lebanon if he believed Mr Netanyahu's claims after seeing the site, which is located in an area of southern Beirut under the control of Hizbollah. He shrugged and just said: “Look around.”
But the farcical events of the day belied serious and rising tensions between Israel and Hizbollah.
Mr Bassil, who heads the Hizbollah-aligned Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), said Mr Netanyahu’s address at the UN was an attempt to justify a coming attack on Lebanon.
Israel believes Hizbollah poses a greater threat to Israel now that at any time during its 30-year conflict with the group.
Hizbollah is estimated to be sitting on an arsenal of over 120,000 rockets and missiles and can fire over 1,000 per day, capable of targeting almost every major city in Israel.
Earlier this month Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted that the militia had acquired highly accurate weapons that would “change the entire equation”.
They are believed to now be in possession of the Fateh-110, which uses advanced guidance systems and could take out the Jewish state’s power plants and airports.
“If Israel imposes a war on Lebanon, Israel will face a fate and a reality it has never expected,” Nasrallah warned.
Hizbollah and Israel have not engaged in major hostilities since the 2006 July war, which was devastating for both sides and ended with an Israeli withdrawal.
But Hizbollah has grown considerably stronger in recent years, benefitting from its involvement in the war in Syria.
What it has lost in troops fighting alongside Syrian government forces (the figure is reported to be as high as 1,500) it has gained in training and guidance from Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
In any future conflict, one could expect “significant damage to Israel,” said Brigadier-General Assaf Orion, a retired head of strategic planning for the Israel Defence Forces.
Israel’s missile-defense and anti-rocket systems Iron Dome and David’s Sling will offer some protection, he said, but they would be tested by the scale and scope of Hizbollah’s arsenal.
Israel has been attempting to cut off its supply route in Syria, launching strikes on Iranian and Hizbollah targets inside its neighbour’s territory.
However, a recent Israeli sortie that lead to a deadly incident of friendly fire between Russia and the Syrian government could have made that much more difficult.
Moscow reacted by arming the Bashar al-Assad regime with more advanced anti-missile technology, which Israel worries could be used against its aircraft.
Israel has already warned Lebanon that the entire country is a legitimate target now that Hizbollah has elected officials in government.
An alliance which included Hizbollah made significant gains in Lebanon’s May election, solidifying the group effective veto power on issues including foreign policy.
“The risks for Israel in Lebanon are far higher than in its periodic battles with Hamas in Gaza,” said Daniel L. Byman, senior fellow at DC-based Brookings Institution.
“Both sides are prepared for war this time - should it occur, conflict is likely to be painful for all concerned.”