Site of Israeli attack in Beirut
Site of Israeli attack in BeirutREUTERS/Ahmed Al-Kerdi

Lebanese militia Hezbollah is running out of money, according to Voice of America, after the Israeli offensive against the Iran-backed group puts a stop to three of its key sources of cash.

Hezbollah’s main cash source is Al-Qard al-Hasan (AQAH), a Lebanese quasi-banking institution operated by the terrorist group, followed by Lebanon’s insolvent but licensed commercial banks and arrivals of cash-bearing planes at Beirut’s airport.

The Israeli IDF increased its attacks on Hezbollah last month, after almost a year of limited responses to the militia’s daily attacks on northern Israel.

Israel's Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, or ITIC, a nongovernmental research group of Israeli intelligence community veterans says that Hezbollah founded AQAH in 1982, which originally was a charitable institution providing interest-free loans to needy Lebanese, primarily fellow Shiites, and has since grown into a major institution with branches in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold of Dahiyeh and other Hezbollah-dominated parts of Lebanon.

The US Treasury sanctioned AQAH in 2007 and in a 2021, after putting additional sanctions on AQAH employees, stated that the institution had amassed about half a billion dollars.

MTV Lebanon, one of the country’s leading TV networks, announced that AQAH had been hit hard by Israel’s initial airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh in late September.

Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the US University of Beirut, stated that Israel has “bombed” most of AQAH’s branches and “Hezbollah is facing a severe financial crisis. They can’t pay their members, who have fled their homes and need to support their families,” he explained.

David Asher, a former U.S. Defense and State Department official, noted that Hezbollah is in “deep trouble” as it loses access to the Lebanese banking system. “Lebanese bankers and Hezbollah financiers, who are the wealthiest bankers in the country and who can afford to travel, have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be next targets because they provided help to Hezbollah,” said Asher, adding that “These Lebanese bankers, most of them billionaires, see the situation of Hezbollah is worsening and not going to let it withdraw millions of dollars from their banks. They know that if they do, Israel will eliminate them, too.”

Another Hezbollah funding source that has apparently dried up is deliveries of cash on planes flying to Beirut’s airport, particularly from Iran, the group’s main patron. Israeli IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli warplanes had begun patrolling Beirut airport’s airspace and would not allow hostile flights carrying weapons to land at a civilian facility. He did not comment on cash being transported aboard on what Israel deems to be hostile flights.

The next day, Lebanon’s Transport Ministry reportedly ordered an Iranian plane bound for Beirut to turn back from Lebanese airspace, attributing the move to an Israeli warning to Beirut’s air traffic control tower it Israel would use force if the plane landed there.

Asher added 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 carrying money, not just weapons,” so now there is no cash flow to Hezbollah.

Khashan said Hezbollah’s lack of cash is unlikely to stop its thousands of operatives from fighting Israeli forces anytime soon, adding that “keeping up the fight depends more on the availability of food and ammunition. When your fight is motivated by religious zeal, you have more fundamental issues to worry about than the availability of cash.”