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Cars carried by people who escaped from South Lebanon slow down the heavy traffic on the weekend from Beirut, in the Halde area on November 28, 2024, a day after the fire between Israel and Hatsbala.
Ibrahim Amra | AFP | Gets the image
Until several months ago, the flow of propaganda and Hezbollah was presented at the Beirut International Airport through the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.
Hassan Nasurala, a former leader of the charismatic group who died in Beirut last year, looked at you from the billboards while you were traveling on the road Imam Khomeini, named after the deceased founder of the Iran. The images of the “Hezbollah” leaders were mixed with the dramatic frescoes of the dead Iranian spy -cobbler Casem Saleimani.
Many of these images have now been replaced by Western and local brands. In June, dozens of these billboards along the highway instead represented the driver of the racing vehicle formula 1 Lewis Hamilton, advertising branches.
Many new posters also presents patriotic, united reports that replaced the previously sectarian signboards – the attempt of the new Prime Minister Lebanon Navaf Salam to encourage “new era for Lebanon”, just for the months of the war for the Mediterranean Tourist Boom in a timely manner.
In this “new” Lebanon, Hezbolla is forced to work in the shadows more than ever in the history of the group.
Iranian proxy, which manages several parts of Lebanon as a sub-state and is intended for Washington by a terrorist organization, has always sought creative ways to avoid US sanctions. But since the aggressive attack of Israel – its most deadly since the war of 2006 – the leadership and financial infrastructure “Hezbolla” remained in the carcakes.
“Hezbollah turns out to be the greatest difficulty since its founding. The Israeli war against Lebanon has greatly hit the party and its infrastructure, attempted by the senior military and political leaders of the party, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasurala,” said Joseph Daera, ” Cnbc.
“The regions that were mostly inhabited by the Shiite population were significantly targeted, which also significantly destroyed civilian housing and infrastructure,” he said.
The car carries the coffins of the former leaders of “Hezbolla” Hassan Nasurala and Hashem Soweddin, who died in Israeli airstrikes last year, during the state funeral ceremony, at the Stadium “Sport Camil Chamoun City”, at the stadium “Berut”
Tair al-Sudani | Reuters
A group whose political wing also occupies places in parliament, still possesses a significant political force in Lebanon, which last time held parliamentary elections In 2022. Despite the loss of the most significant number of places in the political history of the group, it was still strongly held by the 62-place coalition in the parliament of 128 members.
While Hezbollah “will not disappear because it has a strong, disciplined and organized political and militant structure and benefit from Iran’s permanent assistance,” the group “is becoming more politically and socially isolated outside the population of Lebanon,” Daher said.
Outside the banking system
While Hezbollah receives most of its financing from Iran, it has also developed extensive international financial networks to make a profit. The group earns money from traditional industries such as banking and construction, but it also works smuggling, money laundering and international drug trading operations in the Middle East and as long as Bulgaria and Argentina. Its income is estimated at billions of dollars annually.
Photo File: Hezbollah leader Lebanon Said Hassan Nashalla gestures when he addresses his fans during a rare public appearance at Ashuri’s southern suburbs on November 3, 2014.
Hassan Shaban | Reuters
The Hezbollah parallel management strategy, which has been operating both a political party and a sub -state group, allowed it to survive and grow as an armed group for decades.
When the Lebanese depositors were recorded from savings in 2019 after Financial crisis After scoring the country and its currency, Hezbolla remained able to finance its base and illegal activity. He only acted on monetary enterprises and managed the dollar market exchange in the black market.
This strategy According to regional analysts, they will continue despite pressure on their finances. Due to the extraordinary complexity of tracking informal, only monetary operations.
Lebanon’s economy “works by more than 60% on cash exchanges, the circulation of which the state cannot trace,” Dairer said. “It is thanks to the segment of these funds in the circulation that hezbollah is smuggling in Lebanon that he finances his activities and pay his staff and helps his popular database, as well as other financing sources, both licensed and illegal.”
However, the United States under the Presidential Administration Donald Trump exert a new pressure on Lebanon’s new government to crack the unlawful activity of Hezbollah.
New government repressions
In the obvious hezbollah financing blow, the Central Bank of Lebanon, Banque Du Liban (BDL), issued a directive that prohibits all financial institutions in the country from any transactions with al-Card al-Hassan-financial organization related to Hezbollala, which provides local loans and jewelry. This is a tool that HEZBOLLAH CEMENT supports with Shiite population and receives more financing for its activities. Last year, Israel was specifically aimed at al-Card al-Hassan objects.
The BDL moving was “brilliant”,-said Matthew Levit, a senior employee of the Washington Institute and the director of the fight against terrorism and the reconnaissance program, since al-Card al-Hassan has long been registered as a charity and thus was able to work outside the Lebanese financial system, evading control.
“Here appears, BDL has found a way to go into the space and say,” Whatever you may be, people can’t provide services for you. You can’t a bank, and anyone who does violate the law, “Levita said.
Black Smoke Rises Above The Dahieh Neighborhood After Israeli Airstrikes On Targets of Lebanese Hezbollah, Widely Believed of the assassinated previve hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, whorael Annoucd has now been Killed, near the Southeast Corner of the International Airport on October 8, 2024 in Beirut, Lean.
Scott Peterson | Gets the image
Until recently, Hezbollah controlled virtually all Entrance ports, including Beirut Airport. Following the Israeli attack on the group, his airport is now under the control of the Lebanese government, which fired Ezbollah employees, detained smugglers and implemented new observation technologies.
Although Tehran still finances its proxy group, its transport routes in Lebanon are sharply limited after losing a key ally with the fall of Bashar al -Assad regime in Syria. Flights coming from Iran and other places designed to attract material support Hezbollah, which are conducted by large checks, CNBC experts said.
“Monetary transfers from the border were intercepted at the airport and the border. We are talking about millions of dollars,” Daur said about updated security in the country.
“Opportunities Window”
Many who want to see the power of Hezbollah will say that now is the time.
“If you now have Iran under great stress, and Lebanon is openly trying to crack the ability of Hezbollah to function as an independent police – and trying to focus on the financing that he needs to do,” you have an interesting opportunity, “said Levit, who also served as a secretary of intelligence and analysis in the US Treasurer.
For the first time in decades, both Prime Minister and President Lebanon are interested in asserting a monopoly about the use of force in the country, he added.
“They are interested in providing a great need for international assistance, which Lebanon should come out of the economic crisis and are interested in telling the Trump administration.”
But it’s not easy. The group, which has long been described as the most powerful non-governmental organization in the Middle East, is still committed to hundreds of thousands of people who count on it for social services and ideological leadership-and remains well armed.
It is noteworthy that no one officially requires the fornication of Hezbollah or ceases to exist completely. Trump’s messenger in Tom Barack’s region recently demanded Hezbollah to put weapons that the group has rejected.
“Hezbollah is not going to disarm because you ask them well,” Levita said. “But we must turn on the Lebanon government to do this, give them the opportunity to do it and return when they do it.”
This requires a combination of carrots and sticks, say former US officials – the irony of fate, tools that have been weakened in many cases by reducing US state resources within the Trump administration.
Alyaksandr Zeroden, director of the company based in Washington, an advisory company Capitol Peak Stritaces, which previously worked in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence of the US Finance Ministry, outlined some of these potential approaches.
“On the offensive, the United States can and probably continue to target the financial networks of Hezbollah inside and outside Lebanon. The US will seek to refuse Hezbollah in Syria, including profitable resumption contracts,” said Gran.
“Stimulating direct tools is more limited in reducing the possibilities of diplomacy and development,” he said – one of the examples of what was the bend of the USAID, which served as a powerful diplomatic vehicle. “However,” he added, “it seems for the United States to support economic reforms.”
For Ronnie Chat, Lebanese Political Analyst and Leading Podculosa Beirut Banjan. In international pressure, Iran would really need to refuse to participate in Lebanon.
“What has not yet changed in favor of Lebanon is an international aspect, which means to find a way of Iran to give up Lebanon, which, in my opinion, can only happen through strategic diplomacy,” said the chat whose father, a former finance minister in Lebanon, was killed in suspected murder of Hezbolla.
“If the Trump administration wants peace as it says, if Donald Trump also wants the Nobel Peace Prize, there must also be some way to take attention and find a peaceful permit, which in a sense satisfies Iran’s conditions,” he said CNBC from Beirut.
The chat warned that the US and Lebanese governments and Lebanese are not important, but ultimately do not break the power of Hezbollah in the country, the chat warned.
“The window is now. This is not tomorrow, and unfortunately it is the closure of the window,” he said. “The intention is not enough. Be it the Trump administration or even whether it is a Lebanese president, it is not enough.”
