Lebanon says Mossad spy arrest story is fake after hotel phone code alert
Officials called the claims fake news after two men from Ramallah were detained for using Israeli phone codes.
By Olivia Parker ·
Lebanese officials dismissed reports on Sunday that two Mossad spies had been captured in the country. The government described the circulating stories as fake news while addressing public concern over the recent detention of two Palestinian men.
The detained individuals are both from Ramallah. Authorities held them after discovering that their mobile phone numbers carried Israeli country codes. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam criticized the handling of the situation, labeling the surrounding noise a moral bankruptcy. His office stated that hostile parties spread the rumors to tarnish his reputation and mislead public opinion.
Security forces questioned the pair and confirmed they had entered Lebanon legally and had visited the country before. Reports from the independent outlet Beirut Time indicated that the initial suspicion arose when the men used those Israeli numbers to book a room at the Lancaster Eden Bay hotel in Beirut. An Uber driver and hotel staff reportedly alerted authorities to the unusual reservation details, triggering the investigation.
The men were allegedly holding Turkish passports. A separate rumor emerged the next day that Salam had deported the men rather than detaining them, a claim that angered anti-Israel voices in Lebanon. The incident has intensified local worry about Israeli intelligence operations. Such concern deepened following the pager plot of September 2024, when thousands of booby-trapped devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah confirmed that most of the casualties were its members, though civilians also suffered serious injuries.
The two men remain the focus of the local security review. Their legal status and prior entry records were central to the government's explanation for the quick resolution of the detention.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
