BEIRUT (AP) — The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes targeting branches of a financial institution affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, saying the quasi-banking system is being used to fund the militant group’s military wing.
The strikes destroyed more than a dozen branches of al-Qard al-Hasan across Lebanon Sunday night, and came two weeks after an airstrike killed the man who many referred to as Hezbollah’s “finance minister.”
After assassinating most of Hezbollah’s top political and military commanders, including the group’s longtime leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and pummeling its communities with devastating airstrikes, Israel says it is now going after the Shiite group’s funders and financial institutions in an attempt to further disrupt it and its base of support.
Hezbollah started attacking Israeli military posts along the border with Lebanon a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. Hezbollah said that by launching attacks along the Lebanon-Israel border it was backing up its Hamas allies in the Gaza Strip.
What is al-Qard al-Hasan and who benefits from it?