A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with Lebanon shows smoke billowing after an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on October 20, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
The Israeli military warned on Sunday that it would imminently begin attacking an association accused of financing Hezbollah in Lebanon, calling on people to leave areas around Al-Qard Al-Hassan offices.
The strikes mark an expansion of the Israeli campaign against the Iran-backed group, Hezbollah, after a year of cross-border exchanges that escalated in late September into a full-blown war, with the military now seeking to degrade the Shiite Muslim movement’s ability to fund its operations.
“Al-Qard Al-Hassan is involved in financing Hezbollah’s terrorist operations against Israel. Therefore, the IDF (military) has decided to target this terrorist infrastructure,” army spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a statement on social media platform X.
The US-sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan is a financial association linked to Hezbollah and designated by Saudi Arabia as a “terrorist” entity.
Adraee called on people living near any “infrastructure” belonging to Al-Qard Al-Hassan association to evacuate immediately.
He later shared the locations of more than a dozen buildings in Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion and in the Bekaa Valley region in Lebanon’s east.
Another Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a televised briefing that “we will attack numerous targets in the coming hours and more targets during the night.”
An AFP correspondent in Lebanon’s coastal city of Sidon said the Israeli announcement triggered panic among displaced people sheltering near a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
Many rushed out of the school-turned-shelter, heading on foot towards the seafront or other areas of the city, the correspondent said.
According to the US Treasury, Al-Qard Al-Hassan has been used by Hezbollah as a cover to mask financial activities and to gain access to the international financial system.
A senior Israeli intelligence official described the firm as an integral component to Hezbollah’s financial network that helps fund its operations and pay salaries to militants.
The official told reporters that the planned strikes were meant not only to hurt Hezbollah financially but also to affect members of the Shiite Muslim community who use Al-Qard Al-Hassan’s financial services.
“The main objective is to affect the trust between Hezbollah and a lot of the Shiite community that uses this system”, the official said, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity.
Al-Qard Al-Hassan “don’t belong to the Lebanese state, they belong to Hezbollah”, added the official.
Israel in late September widened the focus of its military operations to Lebanon after nearly a year of war against Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The military last month launched massive strikes on Hezbollah strongholds, including one in Beirut that killed the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, later sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.
