The Israeli army warned that it would strike during the night from Sunday to Monday “the entire economic architecture of Hezbollah, throughout Lebanon”, to prevent the militia from reconstituting itself after the war.
Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari announced this Sunday evening, October 20, that the IDF would “attack Hezbollah’s economic power to damage fighters’ confidence in their organization”. The IDF thus intends “avoid that Hezbollah can rebuild its forces after the war», said an Israeli intelligence officer in a briefing to the international press.
The Jewish state believes that the movement survives today thanks to funding from Iran, around $50 million transferred every month largely via Syria. These exchanges have become more difficult, increasing the role of one of Hezbollah’s branches: the Qard al-Hassan association, which provides the same services as a commercial bank.
Reconstruction of destroyed civilian property
These strikes, which should begin during the night of this Sunday to Monday, would therefore target the Hezbollah units responsible for its economic system, as well as “all branches of Qard al-Hassan”, confirmed the Israeli intelligence officer. The bank, established almost everywhere in the country despite American sanctions imposed in 2017, would be “one of the mechanisms of control of a large part of the Shiite population of Lebanon”. It is a perspective which echoes the successive declarations of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and who would like to believe that Hezbollah is a foreign body in Lebanon.
But since the end of the civil war, the former militias which have become political parties have shared power but also the entire state and economic architecture of the country of the Cedar. The daily life of civilians revolves around these infrastructures which, for the most part, are located in densely populated civilian neighborhoods. In their daily lives, the economic survival of many Lebanese is linked to the system erected by the Lebanese militia parties, led by Hezbollah. At the end of the 2006 war, the latter claimed victory, strengthened its resistance myth in southern Lebanon, and financed the reconstruction of all destroyed civilian property. A horizon of reconstruction to which tens of thousands of displaced people from Lebanon are attached to support today’s war.
Doctrine «Dahiya 2.0»
By announcing this astonishing escalation in advance, the IDF wants “clarify that we are not harming civilian interests”, according to the intelligence officer. The IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, warned the Lebanese on Sunday evening to immediately “move 500 meters away from buildings used by Hezbollah.” If the targeting of the Qard al-Hassan banks has passed the scrutiny of Israeli jurists, it is not certain that this is the opinion of the rest of the international community. On the contrary, it seems to be moving towards a “Dahiya 2.0” doctrine, like the one used in 2006 in a counterproductive manner, advocating the non-distinction between military targets and civilian targets, and the disproportionate nature of military operations to affect the base. Hezbollah sympathizer.
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