Israel blogger makes ‘secret trip’ to Beirut

Lebanese officials have been slammed for allowing a notorious Israeli blogger into the country after failing to recognise her at customs.

American-Israeli blogger Alyne Tamir entered Lebanon on a US passport for a “secret trip” on New Year’s Day.

Tamir later shared details of the trip with her 300,000 followers on Instagram and posted a photo showing herself holding a US passport with an Emirates airline ticket tucked inside.

The blogger, who is also known for being the girlfriend of controversial Arab-Israeli vlogger Nas Daily, posted a series of photos as “useless hints” for her followers to guess her destination.

Lebanese were able to identify numerous spots in Beirut from the pictures but Tamir’s followers appeared to think the Israeli blogger was in Turkey.

Tamir’s trip was first revealed by Lebanese activist group ThawraMap, which shared the story on their social media platform.

A post on the group’s Instagram account read: “We understand that she might have entered the country using another passport. But how weak is our intelligence [for] not realising they are letting a famous Israeli influencer who is dating an Israeli propaganda machine in our country?”

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Prominent Lebanese activists Gino Raidy also revealed Tamir’s trip on his blog yesterday, writing: “On January 2nd, Dear Alyne [Tamir’s Instagram handle], an Israeli-American influencer, flew into Dubai from Beirut, after she says she spent “only two days” on a “secret trip”.”

Raidy claimed Tamir had flown to Beirut from Israel, via Dubai, and used her American passport to enter Lebanon.

The Lebanese activist added that the series of photos “make it clear [Tamir] was in Beirut. You can see the abandoned phone booths, destroyed, with the yellow fence with the graffitied walls of [Electricite du Liban].”

Raidy went on to condemn Lebanese security forces for failing to stop Tamir entering the country and claimed state security forces had not noticed the prominent Israeli’s arrival.

“It’s quite sad to see them miss an actual Israeli citizen flying in through the airport,” Raidy wrote. “They don’t even let Palestinian’s living in Israel come into the country sometimes, but this very famous Israeli just flew in, spent a couple of days and left without anyone in the government noticing.”

Lebanon and Israel are technically still at war and both countries forbid their citizens from visiting the other.

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