The BBC’s Orla Guerin has been taken on a tour of Al Sahel Hospital in Beirut where Israel claims millions of dollars in cash and gold are kept in a hidden Hezbollah bunker underneath.
Doctors denied the allegation and took the BBC through the building, including to the first and second level below ground. They insisted there is nothing underneath.
On Monday night the hospital had to evacuate around 50 staff and 15 patients - none of them critical - when Israel made its claim.
Hospital officials have insisted that Al Sahel has no connection with any organisation, or group, or faction.
It just seems like an odd thing to claim. If it were true it gives Hezbollah notice to move it all somewhere else (which, let’s be neutral, may have happened). If it’s a complete lie, it doesn’t justify bombing a hospital and you just end with journalists like the BBC walking around saying “no there isn’t”.
So either way it just seems like an odd announcement to make.
It’s not odd if you want to cause a mass migration of people to break the front lines.
Personally, I would have claimed Hezbollah were using it as a HQ / meeting place. Because there is no physical evidence of that, and it’s far more likely to be taken by people to be a warning of bombing. Which would have the panic effect you mention.
Claiming there’s a pile of gold there is just strange. A) it’s quite easy to show there isn’t (assuming Hezbollah haven’t just moved it already) and b) it’s not really a warning of bombing. One would expect Israel to drop special forces in and confiscate the gold, not blow it up…
I don’t think the content of the threat matters for the IDF’s objective. If we’re to be cynical, the half-ass excuse is a geopolitical posturing to show how brazen they can be with their genocide and possibly a way to demoralize the Democrat’s base before an election.
When they bomb the hospital I’d say you have a point. But until then it seems to me to be a flex to show how completely compromised Hezbollah’s communications are. Israel are daring them to go get the gold out. (I am giving Hezbollah some credit that they can hide gold slightly better than a cursory glance round some offices by a BBC crew would reveal. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe they would actually hide gold in a hospital but YMMV…)
Obviously if they did move it they would be tracked every inch to their secondary location. It is psyops but - if we’re a little less cynical - I think it’s Israel Vs Hezbollah psyops.
That to me to make a little more sense as a primary motive. Israel wants to discredit Hezbollah leadership above all else. So what better way to do it than advertise that they’re powerless to go and retrieve part of their treasury?