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Israel said Monday it struck around 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over 24 hours, ramping up its offensive to hit the group’s finances, as the United States called for the war to end “as soon as possible”.
The strikes on Hezbollah’s financial arm mark an expansion of the nearly month-long war in Lebanon, and came as Israel continued pounding Gaza more than a year into the war there.
Israel’s military said that an underground vault with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold was among nearly 30 targets belonging to Hezbollah-linked financial firm Al-Qard al-Hassan hit since Sunday night.
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The money in the vault was “being used to finance Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Another bunker, yet to be targeted, is estimated to hold “at least half a billion dollars in dollar bills and gold,” he added.
The military vowed to carry out further attacks on Monday evening, including in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of capital Beirut which has been pummelled by strikes in recent weeks.
Shortly after Israel’s military told residents to evacuate parts of the capital, the more central Ouzai neighbourhood was hit for the first time during the conflict, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers told AFP they were looking for survivors amid the devastation in Ouzai.
“They did not leave any room for people to escape. The strike came closely after the warning,” one said.
Other strikes hit Hreik neighbourhood near Lebanon’s largest public hospital, the NNA added.
Two plumes of smoke rose above Beirut’s southern suburbs, AFPTV footage showed.
Also on Monday evening, Hezbollah said it had launched a volley of rockets at an army intelligence base in the suburbs of the main Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
