Lebanon blocking planes from Iran carrying cash

Hezbollah said in ‘financial crisis,’ unable to pay members due to Israeli offensive

Report says terror group’s main money sources hit by IDF strikes, Lebanese bankers not providing money for fear of being eliminated

A picture taken during a tour organized by Hezbollah's media office on October 2, 2024, shows portraits of the Lebanese terror group's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah hanging on the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs. (AFP)
A picture taken during a tour organized by Hezbollah's media office on October 2, 2024, shows portraits of the Lebanese terror group's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah hanging on the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs. (AFP)

Hezbollah is facing a “financial crisis” and cannot pay its members as Israel’s offensive on the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based terror group continues, according to a recent media report.

Voice of America reported on Friday that the group’s main cash source is the Al-Qard al-Hasan (AQAH) nonprofit, citing researchers in Lebanon and the United States, as well as the US Treasury Department.

Founded by Hezbollah as a charitable organization in 1982, AQAH has grown into a major institution with branches throughout Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. It operates as a quasi-banking institution without a license, the report added.

The US blacklisted AQAH in 2007, saying Hezbollah uses it as a cover to manage the group’s financial activities and gain access to the international financial system. In 2021, further sanctions were announced.

Apart from AQAH, Hezbollah also relies on Lebanon’s commercial banks and cash that arrives via plane at Beirut’s airport, Voice of America said.

AQAH, according to the report, suffered major blows in Israeli airstrikes in September on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh — a southern suburb of Beirut and Hezbollah stronghold.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah target in Beirut’s southern suburbs on October 5, 2024 (ETIENNE TORBEY / AFP)

The airstrikes targeted Hezbollah’s “cash storage centers, including a large part of the AQAH vaults,” and left it in a “financial crisis,” the report said, citing MTV Lebanon, one of the country’s leading TV networks.

With most of AQAH’s branches destroyed, Hezbollah was left unable to pay its members who have “fled their homes and need to feed their families,” the report said, citing Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.

Hezbollah is also losing access to its other cash sources: the Lebanese banking system and Beirut’s airport.

David Asher, a former US Defense and State Department official who targeted Hezbollah’s global drug trafficking and money laundering networks, told VOA on Wednesday, “I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah.”

Asher, also a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, added that he is in contact with sources in Lebanon recruited by the US to provide information about Hezbollah and that the group is in “deep trouble.”

The bankers, “most of them billionaires,” fear Israel could “eliminate them” if they provide Hezbollah with money, he said.

According to Khashan, Iran used to smuggle cash to Hezbollah via regular flights to Beirut, evading the Lebanese government’s customs department. He said that now, the government is asserting more control over the airport, and there is no cash flow.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on September 27 that Israel would be patrolling the airspace at Beirut’s international airport and would “not allow the transfer of weapons to the Hezbollah terror group, in any way.”

Illustrative: IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari speaks to reporters on October 1, 2024. (Screenshot/IDF)

Hagari did not mention flights carrying cash, though the next day, according to Reuters, Lebanon’s transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft headed for Beirut not to enter its airspace, warning that it would use force if the plane landed.

Asher also told VOA that his Israeli counterparts had informed him that “the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons.”

Nevertheless, Kashan told VOA that Hezbollah’s lack of cash was unlikely to stop it from continuing its offensive against Israel.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in clashes since the Iran-backed terror group began firing rockets into northern Israel on a near-daily basis following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre. The group says it is  doing so in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran, as Israel’s campaign against it in the Strip continues.

On September 30, after a string of Israeli airstrikes took out most of Hezbollah’s top leadership, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah, the IDF announced it would be conducting limited ground incursions into southern Lebanon. The operations are meant to put an end to Hezbollah’s rocket fire and make it safe for Israel’s northern residents to return home.

Emanuel Fabian and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.

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