ROME (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday he had seen no evidence that a Hezbollah bunker filled with cash had been built under a hospital in Beirut, adding that Washington would continue to work with Israel to gain better insights.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah has hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold stashed in a bunker built under a hospital in Beirut, adding that it would not attack the facility as it continues attacks on the group’s financial assets .
“We have not seen any evidence of that at this time. But you know, we’ll continue to work with our Israeli counterparts to get a better sense of what exactly they’re looking at,” Austin told reporters in Rome.
Fadi Alameh, a Lebanese lawmaker with the Shiite Amal Movement party and the director of the hospital in question, Al-Sahel, told Reuters that Israel is making false and defamatory claims and called on the Lebanese army to visit and investigate. show that it is only operating rooms, patients and a morgue.
In a televised statement on Monday, the Israeli army’s chief spokesman said Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month, had built the bunker designed for long-term residence.
(This story has been refiled to remove redundant word in paragraph 1)
