Lebanon: Two Palestinians Detained After Israeli Phone Numbers Used for Hotel Booking
Officials called reports of captured Mossad agents fake news after Uber drivers flagged suspicious reservation details.
By Alessia Desai ·
Lebanese authorities confirmed on Sunday that two Palestinians from Ramallah were detained in Beirut after using phone numbers with Israeli country codes to reserve a room at the Lancaster Eden Bay hotel.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the episode as a case of "moral bankruptcy" in a statement released by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. His office asserted that hostile parties spread rumors of a Mossad capture to mislead public opinion and tarnish his reputation.
Security forces investigated the two men and determined that both had entered Lebanon legally and had visited the country previously. The initial suspicion arose when an Uber driver and hotel staff contacted authorities regarding the reservation details, which included Israeli phone numbers.
Beirut Time reported that the men were staying under Turkish passports. The following day, additional rumors circulated claiming Salam had deported the pair rather than detaining them, which sparked outrage among anti-Israel groups in Lebanon.
The incident has intensified local anxiety regarding Israeli intelligence operations. These concerns have grown since September 2024, when thousands of rigged pagers exploded across Lebanon and Syria. While Hezbollah acknowledged that most of the thousands wounded and killed were its members, reports indicated that several civilians also sustained life-altering injuries during the blast.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
