US House passes sanctions targeting Hezbollah

Hezbollah fighters.(REUTERS)
Updated 26 October 2017
Follow

US House passes sanctions targeting Hezbollah

WASHINGTON: The United States House of Representatives voted Wednesday on three bills that aim to restrict the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s ability to finance its various illicit activities. The House is also widely expected to pass another bill tomorrow that will curtail Iran’s effort to develop its ballistic missile capability.

The new measures are consistent with the US administration’s recently announced new strategy on Iran, which aims to hold Iran accountable for its “nefarious” activities in the region, including its support of militant groups such as Hezbollah. The group has been designated a terrorist entity by the United States and Saudi Arabia as well as a by a number of other countries around the world.

The three bills that were passed included the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2017 (HIFPA), the Sanctioning Hizbollah’s Illicit Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act and a non-binding resolution “urging the European Union to designate Hizbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization”. The House is widely expected to pass the Iran Ballistic Missiles and International Sanctions Enforcement Act tomorrow.

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence observed the 34th anniversary of the killing of 241 American servicemen in Beirut by Hezbollah on Oct. 23, 1983. “We will never forget the 241 American service members killed by Hezbollah in Beirut. They died in service to our nation,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account on Monday.

In a statement issued to American media outlets this past Friday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said: “It is the support for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and murderous regimes like Assad’s, along with continued ballistic missile advancements, that must be addressed.”

Asked by Arab News whether the Trump administration views Hezbollah as being part of the wider conflict with Iran, Hussein Ibish, a senior resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said: “The new sanctions against Hezbollah are definitely part of the Trump administration's efforts to confront Iran and its regional agenda.”

Ibish maintained that the conflict in Syria had strengthened Hezbollah’s position in the region well beyond Lebanon, adding, “It operates as a key and highly effective strike force within this Iranian-led bloc that is absolutely opposed to the status quo in most of the Middle East, the stability of the Sunni Arab world, and the role of the United States in the region.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has recently acknowledged that US sanctions would adversely impact his group. "This does not affect our main source of finances, but there are people who donate (money) to us who might be cautious," Nasrallah said in what many interpreted as a reference to Hezbollah’s main patron, Iran.

Speaking to Arab News by phone, Katherine Bauer, the Blumenstein-Katz Family Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former official at the US Treasury Department, said that implementation of HIFPA had drawn a strong and violent response from Hezbollah, which bombed a bank in Beirut in 2016, “to send a message to the banking sector about how rigorously they were implementing the US legislation.”

Asked whether the new US measures would effectively weaken Hezbollah and curb its wide range of financial activities, Joseph Bahout, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expressed doubt but maintained that US lawmakers might be using an indirect approach. “It is maybe the US legislators' rationale: Increase the pain level on the Lebanese at large in order to increase the cost of 'accommodating' Hezbollah," Bahout said.


Palestinians attempt to use Gaza’s Rafah Border crossing amidst delays

Updated 08 February 2026
Follow

Palestinians attempt to use Gaza’s Rafah Border crossing amidst delays

  • The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening

CAIRO: Palestinians on both sides of the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which opened last week for the first time since 2024, were making their way to the border on Sunday in hopes of crossing, one of the main requirements for the US-backed ceasefire. The opening comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, though the major subject of discussion will be Iran, his office said.
The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening. Over the first four days of the crossing’s opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to United Nations data.
Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that they say is not available in the war-shattered territory. The few who have succeeded in crossing described delays and allegations of mistreatment by Israeli forces and other groups involved in the crossing, including and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab.
A group of Palestinian patients and wounded gathered Sunday morning in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, before making their way to the Rafah crossing with Egypt for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.
Amjad Abu Jedian, who was injured in the war, was scheduled to leave Gaza for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing’s reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel that day, his mother, Raja Abu Jedian, said. Abu Jedian was shot by an Israeli sniper while he was building traditional bathrooms in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.
On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization notifying them that he is included in the group that will travel on Sunday, she said.
“We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation),” she said. “We want the Israeli military not to burden them.”
The Israeli defense branch that oversees the operation of the crossing did not immediately confirm the opening.
A group of Palestinians also arrived Sunday morning at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing border to return to the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.
Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing’s operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.
The crossing was reopened on Feb. 2 as part of a fragile ceasefire deal that stopped the war between Israel and Hamas. Amid confusion around the reopening, the Rafah crossing was closed Friday and Saturday.
The Rafah crossing, an essential lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, was the only crossing not controlled by Israel prior to the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side of Rafah in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.
Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — along with two companions for each — would be allowed to leave, but far fewer people than expected have crossed in both directions.