A travel influencer with Israeli citizenship has caused a stir in Lebanon after recording himself speaking Hebrew in Beirut, according to Lebanese media and footage reviewed from the influencer’s now private social media.
Going by the name Avi Gold, the influencer recorded himself walking around Beirut’s Zaitunay Bay a day before he flew to Damascus.
The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation claimed to have verified that the man, whose legal name it reported as Avraham Dov Goldstein, is a dual citizen of Canada. He entered the country using his Canadian passport.
Gold was said to have entered Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing, which borders Syria, where he stayed in Hamra before flying back to Syria the next day from Beirut airport on September 18.
Gold said he did not wish to comment when contacted by The Jerusalem Post.
Gold told Walla last week that he greatly enjoyed his time in Syria, was embraced by the locals, and visited some of Damascus’s last remaining Jews.
In a 2020 interview with Ynet, Gold shared that his goal was to visit every country on the planet. He has already spent some time in Iran, though he does not yet count the trip because it was not long enough.
"To calculate a country as a country I visited, I have three rules," he explained. "The first rule is to enter the country legally, the second is to stay in it for at least 72 hours, and the third is to have good experiences.”
Gold reportedly entered the country with another Israeli national, named by RT Arabic as Berel Indig, who also left the country a day after arriving.
The dangers faced by Israeli citizens in Lebanon
Dan Brotman, an Israeli-American-South African citizen, was arrested while visiting Lebanon and told The Jerusalem Post that he was severely mistreated during his period of detention there.
During his third trip to Lebanon, authorities discovered Brotman was Israeli and immediately arrested him. He described how he suffered psychological torture for the days he was there and was physically restrained with handcuffs for much of that time. He added he was made to listen to other detainees being physically and psychologically abused.