It did not take long for the road to Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport to return to being a central showcase for the political confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.
Days after the Shiite militia group erected images of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, with the phrase “Thank you, loyal Iran,” the banners were removed and replaced with others bearing the slogans “Lebanon First” and “Lebanon Unites Us.”
Those new banners, in turn, were burned Sunday by unknown assailants, reigniting the dispute and turning one of Lebanon’s most visible public gateways into a symbolic battleground between the party and the state.
The issue goes beyond a possible legal violation or a dispute over who has the right to use public space. The campaign thanking Iran came amid a fragile ceasefire with Israel, whose forces remain in control of parts of Lebanese territory, and the consequences of the war continue to stretch from the south to Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Bekaa Valley and the capital itself. Thousands have been killed or wounded, hundreds of thousands displaced, and reconstruction and compensation efforts have yet to begin.
A Public Road as a Political Platform
The airport road has long served as a stage for Hezbollah’s political messaging. For years, portraits of the group’s leaders and of Iran’s supreme leader were displayed there before Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar ordered them removed last year as part of a campaign to clear partisan displays from Lebanon’s streets.
Coming after a war from which Hezbollah emerged burdened by heavy military and political losses, that order was widely seen as a sign that the group’s ability to impose its symbols in public spaces had weakened.
The banners’ return in recent days, this time as part of a campaign thanking Iran, coincided with Lebanon’s cease-fire being included in the memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington. Observers saw them as an effort by Hezbollah to reassert its political presence and send a message of loyalty to its Iranian ally at a sensitive regional moment.
After the banners sparked controversy, Hajjar said Thursday that he had instructed the relevant authorities to remove them.
Ghiyath Yazbek, a member of Parliament, told Alhurra that the state had a duty to remove the images, saying they violated the law and damaged the image of the state.
“If the state is unable to remove pictures hanging on the airport road, how will it be able to disarm Hezbollah?” he said.
The Cost Left Out
Many Lebanese are still counting the cost of the war. Hassan, lost his home in southern Lebanon border town of Aitaroun. His other home in Beirut’s southern suburbs was damaged, and he was displaced with his family.
He said gratitude “should be directed to the Lebanese who lost their sons, their homes, their villages and their livelihoods.”
Reem, who lost a relative in a strike on the city of Tyre, said Lebanese people were waiting not for banners of thanks, but for compensation, reconstruction and guarantees that the war would not be repeated.
According to a joint assessment by the United Nations Development Program and Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research, direct damage to buildings south of the Litani River reached about $1.38 billion, with more than 11,000 buildings completely destroyed. Since March 2, the war has killed more than 4,000 people and wounded more than 12,000, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Ali al-Amin, editor in chief of the Janoubia news site, told Alhurra that Hezbollah’s influence within its own communities limits the emergence of public dissent. He pointed to what he described as “intimidation, repression and threats,” as well as the group’s security, economic and social power.
Messages Outside the Law
Mohi Eddine al-Shehimi, a professor of law and foreign policy in Paris, told Alhurra that Lebanese law does not allow the display of images of foreign leaders or foreign flags in streets and public squares, except in cases related to diplomatic missions.
He noted that the 1945 law governing the display of the Lebanese flag and foreign flags states that no flag other than the Lebanese flag may be raised on Lebanese territory except under specific legal exemptions.
But the issue is not only about legal texts. The removal of one set of banners, the appearance of another and the burning of the replacements have again raised the question of whether the state can enforce the law in public spaces when the party involved is an armed group with broad political and security influence.
