Beirut Airport Screens Come Under Cyberattack, Hackers Send Message to Hezbollah

FILE PHOTO - A view of an empty hall at Beirut's international airport  - REUTERS/Mohamed AzakirREUTERS
FILE PHOTO - A view of an empty hall at Beirut's international airport - REUTERS/Mohamed AzakirREUTERS
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Beirut Airport Screens Come Under Cyberattack, Hackers Send Message to Hezbollah

FILE PHOTO - A view of an empty hall at Beirut's international airport  - REUTERS/Mohamed AzakirREUTERS
FILE PHOTO - A view of an empty hall at Beirut's international airport - REUTERS/Mohamed AzakirREUTERS

Beirut airport on Sunday came under a cyberattack, Lebanon's state news agency said, with footage shared by local media showing anti-Hezbollah messages had replaced screen displays at its terminal.

Media reports said the airport message urged the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah not to "drag the country into war".

Lebanon's National News Agency said "the cyberattack on the departure and arrival screens at the airport disrupted the BHS baggage inspection system."

It added that authorities were working to restore the screens "and to maintain normal movement at the airport".

The message said the airport was "not the airport of Hezbollah and Iran", AFP reported.

"Hassan Nasrallah, no one will support you if you drag the country into war," it added, addressing the group's leader, also saying "we will not fight on behalf of anyone."

"You're going to blow up our airport by bringing in weapons. Let the airport be freed from the grip of the (Hezbollah) statelet," the airport message said.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.