Israel expands Lebanon assault, striking banks to hit Hezbollah's finances

The Israeli military expanded its offensive in Lebanon overnight, striking bank branches across the country to target Hezbollah's finances in an assault that sparked panic in Beirut and sent civilians fleeing for safety.

Hundreds of residents of Lebanon's capital and surrounding suburbs were forced to suddenly flee their homes Sunday night after the Israel Defense Forces issued a string of evacuation orders, with blasts ringing out shortly after.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari warned the evacuation orders for residents of Beirut and other areas of Lebanon were ahead of strikes targeting buildings he said were being "used to finance Hezbollah's terror activities."

Hagari did not name the institutions being targeted, but over the course of the night, a string of branches belonging to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan bank were hit in a volley of airstrikes. The U.S. and Israel have linked the bank to the Iran-backed militant and political group.

An NBC News crew in Beirut heard the blasts ring out as Lebanese national media reported strikes on bank branches in the city's southern suburbs. Meanwhile, video shared on social media and geolocated by NBC News showed buildings on fire and collapsing after apparent air strikes.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, or AQAH, has been under U.S. sanctions since 2007, with the U.S. Department of the Treasury describing the bank as being used by Hezbollah "as a cover to manage the terrorist group's financial activities" and to "gain access to the international financial system."

In the years since, Treasury officials have continued to accuse Hezbollah of using the bank to "abuse the Lebanese financial sector and drain Lebanon's financial resources at an already dire time" in a country grappling with a series of protracted economic and political crises.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, according to local media, with many based in the Shiite-majority southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel's strikes on the bank's branches marks an expansion of its war against Hezbollah beyond what the IDF has described as the targeting of Hezbollah military sites.

During his briefing, Hagari said that "in the coming days," Israeli officials would "reveal how Iran funds Hezbollah’s terror activities by using civilian institutions, associations and NGOs that act as fronts for terrorism."

Hagari said that dozens of projectiles had been fired into northern Israel in the 24 hours before the Israeli military began issuing evacuation orders ahead of its strikes Sunday night.

In a separate statement, the IDF said Monday that Israeli soldiers also continued to launch ground raids into southern Lebanon and had dismantled "large quantities of Hezbollah's weapons," while also killing Hezbollah members, including "tactical-level commanders."

At least 2,464 people, including 127 children, have been killed in Lebanon since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began to escalate last year following Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack, according to the Lebanese health ministry, while an estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes.

In an interview with Al Arabiya on Monday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he believed there would be "no solution except through diplomacy" to bring fighting in the region to an end.

"Currently, there is destruction, war, and violence, but in the end, we will resort to a diplomatic solution," he said, adding that he'd had no direct contact with Hezbollah since the middle of last month.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued a deadly offensive in northern Gaza, where dozens of people were killed over the weekend in Israeli airstrikes in the areas of Beit Lahia and the Jabalia refugee camp, according to local health officials.

The IDF said Monday that troops had killed militants and continued to dismantle militant infrastructure and tunnel shafts in the area of the Jabalia refugee camp over the past day. The military said troops were also operating across southern and central Gaza.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the mounting violence in the Middle East, saying the regional conflict was "getting worse by the hour."

"Every air strike, every missile launch, every rocket fired, makes the suffering even worse for the millions of civilians caught in the middle," he said in a post on X on Monday. "All people in the region deserve to live in peace.”