US announces new sanctions targeting Hezbollah-linked gold exchange

WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions against a gold exchange it said facilitates Iranian financial support to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.

The Treasury Department said the targeted gold exchange was part of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a Hezbollah financial institution already under US sanctions whose branches were bombed by Israel in 2024 strikes.

“Hezbollah is a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“Treasury will work to cut these terrorists off from the global financial system to give Lebanon a chance to be peaceful and prosperous again.”

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the gold exchange, Jood SARL, which it said “masquerades as a non-governmental organization” and is used to ensure Hezbollah’s cash flow from Iran.

It also said it was imposing sanctions on a number of individuals or entities, including Russian national Andrey Viktorovich Borisov, for working on Hezbollah’s finances, as well as Lebanon’s Mohamed Nayef Maged. It said it will also sanction several shipping companies. The sanctions freeze any assets in the United States and make financial transactions with the listed entities a crime.

Lebanon sits on one of the largest gold reserves in the Middle East. Its government is weighing whether it can use that stockpile to restore a crippled economy as the price of the precious metal has spiked.

Israel struck a major blow against Hezbollah in 2024, killing its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top officials after the terror group began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.

A US-brokered ceasefire with Hezbollah came in November 2024 after two months of open conflict in Lebanon, including an IDF ground operation in the country’s south in a bid to enable the safe return of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by the terror group’s near-daily attacks.

The ceasefire required both Israel and Hezbollah to vacate southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese military. Israel has withdrawn from all but five strategic posts along the border.

Since the ceasefire, the IDF said it has killed over 400 Hezbollah operatives and members of allied terror groups in strikes, hit hundreds of Hezbollah sites, and conducted over 1,200 raids and other small operations in southern Lebanon.

Weakened by the war and still facing regular Israeli strikes, Hezbollah is under internal and international pressure to hand over its weapons.

Last month, the Lebanese army announced that it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah, covering the area in the country’s south between the Israeli border and the Litani River.

Times of Israel staff and AP contributed to this report.