Israeli attacks on Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a bank institution in Lebanon, sparking panic in the U.S.
A senior Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to details attack plans prior to being carried out, told reporters on Sunday that Israel planned to hit several of the institution’s branches in Lebanon to help fund Hezbollah.
Late Sunday an Israeli military spokesperson published messages online in Arabic instructing Lebanese civilians to move away from specific buildings that house branches of the bank, called Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
While United Nations representatives said the warnings sparked panic in parts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israel’s foreign minister said 15 buildings were struck and its military would continue to attack Hezbollah.
The U.S. has long sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan, saying it is used to manage finances by Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militia and political movement that the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
The Carnegie Middle East Center’s director wrote on his Facebook page that Al- Qard Al-Hassan was a Microfinance institution like the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In a country where the mainstream internationally linkedbanking system has repeatedly collapsed, the Lebanon institution provides loans to low income individuals against specific assets, and women are allowed to offer their jewelry as a security for the loans.
The few remaining patients had been evacuated after the Israeli military’s announcement the night before. The rest had left earlier because of repeated airstrikes in the surrounding neighborhood.
Hezbollah is partly funded by the Iranian government and Israel would continue to hit it until it collapses.
Precise details of fatalities and injuries tied to the strikes overnight into Monday have not yet been confirmed. Lebanon’s National News Agency said the strikes on at least one of the financial branches caused damage to other floors in the same building, as well as neighboring buildings, including nearby stores. In the city of Tyre, the agency reported severe damage to homes and a radio station due to the strike on one branch.
The Health Ministry in Lebanon reported 16 people were killed and 59 others were wounded on Saturday, bringing the total death toll since the start of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah last October to over two thousand.
A drone that the Iranian state news agency says Hezbollah sent from Lebanon had targeted the family residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the northern city of Caesarea, according to the prime minister’s office. Sara Netanyahu described it as an ” attempt to kill the prime minister of Israel” and an attack on all of us in a social media post.
For months, Hochstein has been tasked by the White House with calming the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Ahead of his arrival in Lebanon, Israel’s military had announced fresh ground raids in southern Lebanon, killing fighters and confiscating anti-tank missiles and other explosives. According to the Israeli military, around 200 missiles crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon on Sunday and two dozen missiles crossed the border on Monday.
In September, one of the group’s founding members, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The collapse sent smoke and debris flying into the air a few hundred meters away from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend attack on the Israeli PM’s house.
Matthew Miller, spokesman for the US State Department, said in a statement that the need for adramatic increase in aid to Gaza was stressed by Blinken when he met with Netanyahu. There is need for more aid in Gaza according to a letter sent by Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.
Israeli-Hezbollah War, the War in Gaza, and the Devastation of Palestinians in Israel Revealed by Associated Press
Associated Press reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital’s pharmacy and dialysis center, which was full of patients at the time.
After Israel claimed that Hezbollah stored hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold without providing evidence, staff at another hospital feared they would be targeted.
The director of the hospital invited journalists to visit the hospital and the two underground floors on Tuesday as he denied the allegations. AP reporters saw no sign of militants or anything out of the ordinary.
Miller said Blinken also stressed the importance of ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated earlier this month when Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The State Department said ahead of Blinken’s visit that he would focus on ending the war in Gaza, securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and alleviating the suffering of Palestinian civilians.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel and Hamas both accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands in the summer, which led to the talks being halted in August. The killing of Sinwar didn’t change Hamas’ demands.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded tens of thousands, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. It has also caused major devastation across the territory and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million.
Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Out of around 100 people held in Gaza, a few are believed to have died.
