A Middle East Airlines passenger plane flies above the smoke from an Israeli attack that targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, March 9.Daniel Carde/Getty Images
When I last took off from Beirut airport, in mid-October, 2024, Israel was invading southern Lebanon to try to eradicate Hezbollah fighters from the landscape, the southern suburbs of Beirut were being turned to rubble by Israeli air strikes, and some buildings in the centre of the city – one of them a medical clinic within walking distance of my hotel – were getting blown to pieces. No place was safe.
Miraculously, the airport stayed open throughout the war, though only Middle East Airlines was flying to anywhere in Europe, and then only occasionally. My flight to Rome, where I live, was packed with (presumably wealthy) Lebanese and foreigners escaping the war. We took off at dawn and saw smoke rising from buildings that had been hit by missiles – Hezbollah targets, according to the Israeli military.
I was seated next to a young Lebanese woman. As we climbed and banked left over the Mediterranean, all of Beirut came into view for a minute or two. She was weeping. “My beautiful city is being destroyed,” she said as she peered out the window. She took my hand for a few moments, as if we were old friends.
People displaced by Israeli airstrikes gather at Beirut's Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, which has been turned into a shelter.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
A year and a half later, I was headed once again to Beirut to cover a war that is pitting the remnants of Hezbollah, a once well-armed Iranian proxy, against the overwhelmingly powerful Israeli military. Israeli soldiers and armour were moving north to Lebanon’s Litani River, and possibly beyond, in retaliation for Hezbollah rocket salvoes on Israel shortly after it and the U.S. began their attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. Israeli special forces also entered the Bekaa Valley, east of Beirut, adjacent to the Syrian border.
On Tuesday morning, at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci airport, I checked a bag that landed with a thud on the conveyor belt next to the MEA agent’s desk.
“It’s heavy,” I explained.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
“Body armour – I am a journalist,” I responded.
“Then you will want to sit in a window seat on the right side of the plane,” he said.
I asked why. “Because the plane lands with the right side to the city. You will be able to see any war damage better.”
No surprise, my flight was about 80-per-cent empty. I spotted two priests on board − one of them in first class − an elderly woman with her small dog, several well-dressed Lebanese men and more than a few passengers who looked like American tourists but could not possibly have been. Who were they? U.S. military, diplomats, intelligence?
Middle East Airlines is still flying out of Beirut, to the sound of gunfire
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The plane was a newish Airbus A321neo, spotless and with a vast first-class section. I wondered how the flag carrier of a near-bankrupt country that has been shattered by endless violence since a 15-year civil war broke out in 1975 could afford such a sparkling piece of machinery. It turns out MEA is owned not by wealthy investors, nor by the government per se, but by the Bank of Lebanon. A central bank setting interest rates and airfares is one of the odder diversification strategies I have come across in my 35 years working primarily as an economics and business writer.
I tried to engage one of the priests. He was in no mood to talk. The flight was quiet. Absolutely no one was saying a word or watching movies. Nerves, I guessed.
The flight attendants looked tired, no doubt because they had left Beirut at dawn to reach Rome or perhaps because of the stress of living in a country back at war. Silently, they served drinks and a surprisingly good meal for steerage class that included three separate desserts: cake, a chocolate bar and dates.
I could feel the tension rise as we travelled over Cyprus and approached Beirut airport. Everyone strained to look out the windows to try to spot burning buildings, Israeli warplanes or columns of cars filled with displaced Lebanese heading north from the combat areas in the south.
A building destroyed by an Israeli strike in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, March 8.Adri Salido/Getty Images
I was nervous, too, even though I knew that Israel had made a pact with the Americans not to bomb the only working civilian airport in the country, as my colleague Mark MacKinnon pointed out in his article on MEA and its brave pilots. But I saw no warplanes, burning buildings or smoke as we landed in South Beirut, which is considered a Hezbollah stronghold.
Everything looked normal, and I relaxed − but not for long. The very second I stepped outside to meet my driver, Hassan, at about 3:30 p.m., I heard − and felt − a loud blast, then saw black smoke billowing skyward from the Israeli missile strike on a building about a kilometre away. Hassan hustled me into his old white Mercedes, and we left, trying to flee South Beirut as fast as we could.
I was back in a war zone − a beautiful, deadly one by the sea, only a two-hour flight from my home.