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Israeli strikes target financial association in Lebanon
There were chaotic scenes in parts of Beirut late on Sunday as people tried to get to areas that they thought would be safer and multiple explosions were heard, BBC reported.
The Israeli military said it targeted money held by Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH). It offers financial services to civilians in areas where Hezbollah has strong support, but Israel and the US accuse it of being a cover for the group to fund its activities.
The attacks appeared to mark an expansion of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, going beyond military infrastructure used by the group.
They took place hours before US President Joe Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East arrived in Beirut to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the war.
Israel began an intense air campaign and ground invasion against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into the northern occupied territories in support of Palestinians on October 8, 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s attack on Israel.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,800 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
According to the Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA), there were 11 attacks on Dahieh, in southern Beirut.
Videos posted on social media showed one AQAH branch on fire in the Laylaki area, only 500m (1,800ft) away from the runway of Lebanon’s only functioning commercial airport, and another just to the north in Burj al-Barajneh. A third video showed a multi-story building where there was an AQAH branch collapsing in the Chiyah area.
The NNA also said that strikes hit branches in Nabatieh, Tyre and Shehabieh in southern Lebanon, as well as those in the eastern Bekaa Valley towns of Baalbek, Hermel and Rayak.