Israel's military announced Sunday it is now taking aim at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah's financial arm and will attack a “large number of targets” in Beirut and elsewhere. Explosions began in Beirut's southern suburbs about an hour later.
Evacuation warnings affected southern Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and parts of southern Lebanon. AP video showed strikes near Lebanon’s only airport but it continued to operate.
The strikes will target al-Qard al-Hassan "all over Lebanon,” a senior Israeli intelligence official said. Al-Qard al-Hassan is a Hezbollah unit that's used to pay operatives of the Iran-backed militant group and help buy arms, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations.
The registered nonprofit, sanctioned by the US and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by ordinary Lebanese. Its name in Arabic means “the benevolent loan,” and Hezbollah has used it to entrench its support among the Shiite population in a country where state and financial institutions have failed in recent years.
“It’s a big deal,” said David Asher, an expert on illicit financing who has worked at the US Defense and State Departments and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“AQAH is a cash-based organization. The cash will be trash” in the event of strikes, he said, adding that it has large accounts with big Lebanese banks.
Al-Qard al-Hassan in a statement called the decision to target it a sign of Israel’s “bankruptcy” and assured customers it had taken “measures” to ensure their funds were safe. A stream of people left the areas surrounding its branches in Beirut.
In one evacuation notice, for the Choueifat area south of Beirut, the Israeli military mislabeled one target, causing confusion and panic. The location was labeled as Grand Cinema ABC Verdun, a theater in an upscale shopping mall in central Beirut more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.
A year of escalating tensions and frequent cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the war in Gaza turned into all-out war last month. Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon early this month.
Israel's announcement came a day after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the Israel-Hezbollah war, and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.
