On the morning of March 9th the IDF’s Arabic language spokesman advised residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate the area due to planned strikes against “the terrorist infrastructure of Al-Qard al-Hassan Association, which constitutes a central element in financing Hezbollah’s terrorist activities and harms the Lebanese economy in service of Iranian interests”. The AQAH had also been the target of strikes days earlier.
A strike took place later the same morning, in addition to others later in the day.
Visitors to the BBC News website did not see any stand-alone reporting on those events but did find the following entries on the live page that was active at the time.
As can be seen, in all three of those entries the BBC provide uncritical amplification of Hizballah’s denials concerning the AQAH’s financing of terrorism.
None of those entries informs BBC audiences that the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association was first put under U.S. sanctions nearly two decades ago with additional sanctions later added.
“Founded in 1983, AQAH describes itself as a charitable organization that provides loans to people according to Islamic principles that forbid interest. It has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, mainly in Hezbollah bastions such as Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also in central Beirut and other major cities.
However, the US Treasury Department, which sanctioned AQAH in 2007, has said that Hezbollah uses it as a cover to manage “financial activities and gain access to the international financial system.”
“While AQAH purports to serve the Lebanese people, in practice it illicitly moves funds through shell accounts and facilitators, exposing Lebanese financial institutions to possible sanctions,” it said in a statement sanctioning individuals linked to the organization in 2021.”
Additional sanctions were imposed by the United States in 2025 and in February 2026. In July 2025 Lebanon’s central bank, Banque du Liban, banned the country’s licensed financial institutions from any direct or indirect interactions with unlicensed entities, specifically the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association.
BBC audiences would no doubt have found that information conducive to their better understanding of the story of a strike on that Hizballah-controlled financial institution but instead, the BBC chose to uncritically amplify the terrorist organisation’s denials.
As readers may recall, this is not the first time that the BBC has chosen to adopt that editorial policy:
BBC JOURNALIST WHO COMPLAINED ABOUT ‘ISRAELI PROPAGANDA’ PROMOTES HIZBALLAH MESSAGING
So much for “news you can trust”.
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