WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Wednesday issued sanctions on a Lebanese network it accused of smuggling oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to help fund the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels that the US Treasury Department said were overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah’s finance team and used profits from illicit LPG shipments to Syria to aid generate revenue for the group.
Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith, in a statement, said Hezbollah “continues to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize funding violence over taking care of the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands displaced in southern Lebanon.”
US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah
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US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah
- The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels that the US Treasury Department said were overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah’s finance team
One dead in Israeli strike on south Lebanon
- Lebanon’s health ministry said one person was killed in a strike on the village of Rub Thalatheen
- The Israeli army said in a statement that it killed a Hezbollah operative
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed one person on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said, as the Israeli army said it targeted an operative from the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Israel has kept up regular strikes in Lebanon despite a November 2024 truce that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war with Hezbollah.
It usually says it is targeting members of the group or its infrastructure, and has kept troops in five south Lebanon border areas that it deems strategic.
Lebanon’s health ministry said one person was killed in a strike on the village of Rub Thalatheen, close to the Israeli border.
The state-run National News Agency reported a man was killed in the strike while “carrying out repair work on the roof of a house.”
The Israeli army said in a statement that it killed a Hezbollah operative “who took part in attempts to reestablish Hezbollah terror infrastructure in the Markaba area,” adjacent to Rub Thalatheen.
It called the alleged activities “a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
This month, Lebanon’s army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah, covering the area south of the Litani river, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border.
Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army’s progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.
More than 360 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of health ministry reports.
