Al Monitor : Israeli warplanes become every day reality for Lebanese by Andrea Lopez-Tomas

A French soldier with the UNIFIL stands guard at a watchtower as two Israeli warplanes fly over the southern Lebanese village of al-Tiri, 27 September 2006. Disputes over how the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will deal with Hezbollah fighters is holding up the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, Israel's military chief of staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz said today. AFP PHOTO/HASSAN AMMAR (Photo by HASSAN AMMAR / AFP) (Photo by HASSAN AMMAR/AFP via Getty Images)
AL-MONITORResearch based on complaints to the UN Security Council reveals an intrusive and constant Israeli presence over Lebanese airspace, with consequences for public health/Des recherches basées sur des plaintes déposées auprès du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU révèlent une présence israélienne intrusive et constante dans l’espace aérien libanais, avec des conséquences pour la santé publique.

BEIRUT — A Twitter user named Mahmoud tweeted on March 6: “Hostile warplanes flying in the southern airspace of Beirut at medium altitude.” Two years before Mahmoud’s tweet, on April 27, 2020, another user named Hussin tweeted: “Hostile warplanes carry out mock raids at low levels in Lebanese airspace.”

Lebanese citizens have become accustomets to foreign aircraft — especially warplanes from Israel. New research has shown that over the past 15 years alone, at least 22,000 Israeli overflights have been documented over Lebanese airspace. The website Airpressure.info shows many details regarding these flights — for example, type of aircraft, duration of the flight, routes.

Based on 243 letters from 2006 to 2021 addressed by Lebanon to the UN Security Council, Beirut-based investigator Lawrence Abu Hamdan launched this investigation supported by the research project ARS Art-Research-Sound from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Abu Hamdan put together all the information from these letters in order to show a very alarming pattern. “When I found that, I felt that this data needed to be seen and done in a place where it was interactive and searchable, where patterns could be understood,” he told Al-Monitor. READ MORE