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.
Wait, this seems like an insane lie too though, if there was a bunker full of money wouldn’t you want to, y’know, raid it and seize the money rather than destroy it and bury it in rubble???
Raid a gold reserve “in self defense”? Even Israel wouldn’t be able to spin that in any sensible way
Seems pretty easy to spin “Depriving Palestinians of the funds required to wage war on Israel” or something variant thereof
Palestinians aren’t a party to this war, Hamas / Hezbollah is. Also, this hospital is in Lebanon, not Palestine.
I skim read the title and made assumptions. Substitute Palestinians for Hezbollah in my previous post, doesn’t really have any bearing on how difficult it is to spin it.
Good stuff BBC, i wouldnt have been too surprised if they had bombed the hospital with the reporters still inside. Cant wait for the “BBC is Hamas” posts by Israeli officials.
I’m not sure what the point of all this is? As if gold was going to be stacked in a broom cupboard or something.
If the bunker is real the entrance is going to be under a dusty mat at the back of an office under a pile of chairs. Not a door off corridor B.
If it’s made up, not sure what Israel gains from that particular lie since it’s so easy for the likes of BBC to put out a video like the above.
Destroying the hospital destroys vital services in Lebanon’s capitol city. A nation - especially one that is already struggling after years of economic crisis and national disasters - that has its healthcare system under attack is a destabilized nation.
If people are fleeing and not united, they cannot support a government, and the government cannot fight against an unlawful invasion.
They haven’t destroyed the hospital though?
Not yet. But their intentions are clear.
The BBC had full access to the hospital. They were able to go wherever they wanted.
Israel gains the ability to terroize people in hospitals under the guise of a military target by lying.
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?