BEIRUT: The US Treasury said on Tuesday it was placing sanctions on Lebanese money exchanger Hassan Moukalled and his business for alleged financial ties to blacklisted group Hezbollah.
Its announcement said Moukalled was a financial adviser to Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which is also designated by the United States, and carried out financial transactions on its behalf that earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Today, the Treasury Department is taking action against a corrupt money exchanger, whose financial engineering actively supports and enables Hezbollah and its interests at the expense of the Lebanese people and economy,” Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism Brian E. Nelson said.
A Treasury statement said Moukalled’s business CTEX was licensed by Lebanon’s central bank. Neither Moukalled, Hezbollah’s media office nor the central bank immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.
It also sanctioned Moukalled’s two sons, saying they were involved in the same financial dealings.
Moukalled regularly appears on Lebanese television channels as a financial expert and has more than 50,000 followers on Twitter, making him one of the rare public-facing figures sanctioned by Washington for financial links to Hezbollah.
Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a “terrorist organization,” Hezbollah is a heavily-armed and politically powerful faction.
The Treasury regularly issues sanctions against alleged members of Hezbollah’s financial networks, most recently in December.
US sanctions Lebanon money exchanger for alleged ties to Hezbollah
https://arab.news/6tfrm
US sanctions Lebanon money exchanger for alleged ties to Hezbollah
- Announcement said Hassan Moukalled was a financial adviser to Iranian-backed Hezbollah
- It also sanctioned Moukalled’s two sons, saying they were involved in the same financial dealings
Israeli fire kills Palestinian in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures
RAMALLAH: The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said that Israeli forces killed a man in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday.
“Bahaa Abdel-Rahman Rashid (38 years old) was killed by Israeli fire in the town of Odala, south of Nablus,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Shortly before, the Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams handled the case of a man “who suffered a critical head injury during clashes in the town of Odala near Nablus, and CPR is currently being performed on him.”
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
Witness and Odala resident Muhammad Al-Kharouf said that Israeli troops were patrolling in Odala and threw tear gas canisters at men who were exiting the local mosque for Friday prayer.
Rashid was killed by live fire in the clashes that followed, added Kharouf, who had been inside the mosque with him.
The Israeli military said on Friday it had completed a two-week counterterrorism operation in the northern West Bank during which it killed six militants, and questioned dozens of suspects.
It said that Rashid was not among the six militants killed over the past two weeks.
Dozens of men, including Rashid’s father, gathered at the nearby city of Nablus’ Rafidia Hospital to bid him goodbye on Friday, a journalist reported.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
