The United States and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states, acting through the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC), on Tuesday imposed joint sanctions on what they described as the central pillars of Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure. The designations target five entities and 16 individuals, among them the quasi-banking network Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH) and Bayt al-Mal, the group’s unofficial treasury. According to the US Treasury, all targets had previously been blacklisted by Washington; the coordinated action is intended to amplify the disruption of Hezbollah’s access to the formal financial system and to signal a unified Gulf-Western front against the organisation’s funding channels.

Viewed from Washington, AQAH operates under the cover of a Lebanese interior ministry licence as a non-governmental organisation while in practice providing bank-like services, using shell accounts and facilitators to move funds illicitly. The Treasury alleges that Bayt al-Mal, which functions under the direct supervision of Hezbollah’s secretary-general, acts as a bank, creditor and investment arm, holding and investing the group’s assets and serving as an intermediary with mainstream banks. Among the 16 individuals sanctioned are Ibrahim Ali Daher, head of Hezbollah’s Central Finance Unit, which oversees the group’s overall budget and expenditures, and senior AQAH officials Adel Mohammad Mansour and Ahmad Mohamed Yazbeck. The Treasury asserts that some of those designated facilitated transfers worth more than $500 million through Lebanese and US banks over a decade, using shadow accounts to circumvent previous sanctions.

The designations come as Israel intensifies military pressure on Hezbollah. On the same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking from southern Lebanon, declared that Israel had dealt “a strong blow to the Iranian axis” and would remain as long as Hezbollah posed a threat. The TFTC statement said the targeted networks “threaten regional stability, international security, mutual interests, and global trade,” and that restricting Hezbollah’s funding aims to protect the integrity of the international financial system and support the Lebanese people. In Beirut, Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc dismissed the measures as an attempt to frighten the Lebanese population and back Israeli aggression, insisting that such sanctions are not new and that the group does not fear them.

This is the third TFTC designation action under the current US administration and the ninth since the centre was created in May 2017 during the Trump presidency. The three additional entities blacklisted — Al-Khobara, Tashilat SARL, and Auditors for Accounting and Auditing — are accused of providing accounting, auditing and loan services to AQAH, Bayt al-Mal and Hezbollah’s central finance unit. The US Treasury indicated that the measures go beyond asset freezes, aiming to disrupt alternative financial channels including exchange houses, gold trading and informal commercial networks. The dossier remains active, with further coordinated designations expected as the TFTC continues to exchange actionable information on terrorist financing networks.