Israel Says It Will Target Hezbollah’s Financial Arm and Begins Striking Beirut

Israel’s military announced Sunday it is now taking aim at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah’s financial arm and will attack a “large number of targets” in Beirut and elsewhere. Explosions began in Beirut’s southern suburbs about an hour later. Evacuation warnings affected southern Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley, and parts of southern Lebanon. The Al-Qard al-Hassan, sanctioned by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by ordinary Lebanese. Its name in Arabic means “the benevolent loan,” and the Hezbollah terrorist group has used it to entrench its support among the Shiite population in a country where state and financial institutions have failed in recent years....