Lebanon Abruptly Nixes Plan for $122M Airport ‘Terminal 2’

A double-decker Airbus A380 plane lands at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, March 29, 2018. (AP)
A double-decker Airbus A380 plane lands at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, March 29, 2018. (AP)
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Lebanon Abruptly Nixes Plan for $122M Airport ‘Terminal 2’

A double-decker Airbus A380 plane lands at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, March 29, 2018. (AP)
A double-decker Airbus A380 plane lands at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, March 29, 2018. (AP)

A contract for a new terminal at cash-strapped Lebanon's main airport was cancelled following criticism that no public bidding was held for the $122 million project, Lebanon’s caretaker transportation minister said Thursday.

Lebanon’s government last week announced the plan to construct terminal at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport and said it would be operated by daa International, a leading semi-state-owned airport company in Ireland, when it’s completed in four years.

The long-awaited project was to be the first expansion of Lebanon's only international airport since 1998 come as the country faces its worst economic and financial crisis.

“We will not go forward with the project and we will consider it nonexistent,” Transportation Minister Ali Hamie told reporters on Thursday. He added that the decision came from the Hezbollah group that he represents in the Cabinet.

The announcement came a week after the project was announced and sparked a stream of criticism from media outlets over awarding the contract to an international company without holding a public tender. The airport has operated at full capacity, serving up to 8 million passengers a year.

The would-be Terminal 2 was to handle 3.5 million passengers annually starting in 2027. It was to have added six docking stands as well as remote ones, Hamie said in a ceremony at government headquarters. The plans called for Terminal 2 to be built where the airport’s old cargo building used to stand.

Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the country’s political class.

Experts and critics have blasted Lebanon’s rulers for lack of transparency and squandering public money by giving bloated development contracts to businessmen in their circles over recent decades.

Lebanon’s economic crisis that began in October 2019 has left three-quarters of the country’s 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, in poverty.



EU Urges Immediate Halt to Israel-Hezbollah War

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, left, meets with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, right, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, left, meets with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, right, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
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EU Urges Immediate Halt to Israel-Hezbollah War

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, left, meets with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, right, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, left, meets with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, right, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war while on a visit to Lebanon on Sunday, as the group claimed attacks deep into Israel.  

The Israeli military said Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into Israel during the day. Some of them were intercepted but others caused damage to houses in central Israel, according to AFP images.  

A day after the health ministry said Israeli strikes on Beirut and across Lebanon killed 84 people, state media reported two strikes on Sunday on the capital's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Israel's military said it had attacked "headquarters" of the group "hidden within civilian structures" in south Beirut.

War between Israel and Hezbollah escalated in late September, nearly a year after the group began launching strikes in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following that group's October 7 attack on Israel.

The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.  

On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.  

Earlier this week, US special envoy Amos Hochstein said in Lebanon that a truce deal was "within our grasp" and then headed to Israel for talks with officials there.  

In the Lebanese capital, Borrell held talks with parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of ally Hezbollah.

"We see only one possible way ahead: an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701," Borrell said.  

"Lebanon is on the brink of collapse", he warned.  

Under Resolution 1701, which ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces present in the southern border area.  

The resolution also called for Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon, and reiterated earlier calls for "disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon."