Israel accuses Hezbollah of storing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker beneath a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, but says it will not attack the facility.
The Sahel Hospital in Dahieh was evacuated soon afterward, but the hospital’s director, Fadi Alameh, told Reuters the allegations were false.
Israel provided no evidence of the claim that cash was kept in the hospital. Instead, it released an animated graphic purporting to show a bunker beneath a hospital, which it said had previously been used to hide former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has appealed to the Lebanese government to confiscate funds allegedly stolen from Lebanese citizens by Shiite militant groups.
Shortly after, Israel issued a series of warnings to residents of Dahieh to stay at least 500 meters away in order to launch attacks on buildings in the area. Those who remained in the area began to flee.
Air strikes began about an hour later, and strong explosions could be heard throughout Beirut. One of the shots occurred right in front of the entrance to Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s largest public hospital. The airstrike killed at least four people, including a child, and injured 24 others, with a hospital also suffering “heavy damage” from the explosion.
Hospital officials said despite the strike, hospital operations continued as usual and they were still accepting injured patients from Monday night’s strike.
The initial death toll was expected to rise further as first responders continued to dig through rubble for people. Photos of the bombed building in front of Rafik Khairi Hospital showed a bloodied man lying lifeless inside the bombed building.
The Israeli claims raised fears of attacks on hospitals in the greater Beirut area, but there were also similar claims in Gaza, with the IDF saying Hamas was conducting military operations from medical facilities. said.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health denounced the attacks as “attacks on two of Lebanon’s largest hospitals” and part of Israel’s “routine targeting of the Lebanese health sector.” Since fighting began between Hezbollah and Israel a year ago, Israel has killed at least 115 medical workers and first responders.
It was the second night in a row that Beirut was heavily bombed, with Israel carrying out airstrikes on more than 15 Hezbollah-linked banking institutions the night before.
Israel announced Sunday night that it would begin targeting Alkaad al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-affiliated bank that provides interest-free loans and banking services to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, mostly Shiite Muslims. It accused the bank of helping finance Hezbollah and said its branches were used to store weapons.
The announcement that Israel would begin targeting banks that are part of Hezbollah’s civilian arm meant an expansion of Israel’s targeting beyond just the organization’s military wing. The agency was sanctioned by the United States in 2017 during the Trump administration for giving Hezbollah access to the international financial system, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Alkad Alhassan was founded in the early 1980s as a charity that is part of Hezbollah’s powerful social welfare network.
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This banking institution became even more popular after the 2019 Lebanese financial crisis, when commercial banks froze almost all accounts and stopped lending almost completely. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, mainly Shia Muslims, bank with Al-Qaad al-Hassan Bank, many of whom provide gold and other family assets to the bank in exchange for loans. are.
Immediately after announcing the launch of the attack on al-Qad al-Hassan, Israel launched attacks on bank-owned buildings in Greater Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley.
At least 10 airstrikes were carried out in Dahieh, entire buildings collapsed, and eruptions spewed into the air in the Chiya district. A building near Lebanon’s only commercial airport was also bombed, and video footage showed plumes of smoke billowing out while nearby planes sat on the runway.
“They attacked vacant buildings in residential areas and destroyed the surrounding residential areas. These were not military centers or weapons depots,” said Maan Khalil, the mayor of Ghobayly, a southern suburb of Beirut.
U.S. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Monday morning and met with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Navi Berri and the country’s interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati to discuss ways to reach a ceasefire.
Hochstein said implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 is the path to a ceasefire in Lebanon, rejecting calls to amend the UN agreement.
Resolution 1701 ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and has been the framework governing security dynamics on the Lebanon-Israel border ever since. Under the terms of the agreement, Hezbollah and other armed militias must not have a presence beyond the Litani River, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) north of the border. The resolution also ordered Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanon.
