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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/09/world/europe/lebanon-hezbollah-iran-us-finances.html
Inside the War on Hizbullah's Finances
(New York Times) Euan Ward - When Israel launched its latest war against Hizbullah in March, the first targets were banks. Israeli jets leveled more than a dozen branches of Hizbullah's Al-Qard al-Hassan bank in Lebanon. More airstrikes followed on exchange shops that Iran used to funnel money to Hizbullah, and on gas stations that generated revenue for the group. Lebanon's government, under pressure from the Trump administration, worked to choke off the routes that the group used to receive and move money, such as Beirut's international airport. Washington also pressed the Lebanese central bank to tighten controls over the country's cash economy, which Hizbullah had long exploited. Now, Hizbullah is grappling with its most severe economic strain in years. Hizbullah's chief spokesman, Youssef al-Zein, told the New York Times in May that the group had halted the compensation payments it had pledged to supporters as it struggles to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war.