Only one monthly installment remained for “Umm Hassan” to recover the gold necklace she had pawned in exchange for a cash loan—before Israeli airstrikes intensified on branches of the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association. Since that day, her question has no longer been when will I repay, but rather: where did my gold go?
In a country where banks have collapsed and deposits have evaporated, gold in Lebanon is no longer merely jewelry or family inheritance. It has become the last refuge in times of illness, unemployment, rent, and school tuition. When Lebanese citizens lost access to their money in banks, many found themselves forced to pawn their jewelry in exchange for quick liquidity.
From the heart of this collapse, the role of the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association expanded—the financial arm of Hezbollah—which attracted thousands of Lebanese through cash loans secured by gold. It has come to play a parallel financial role outside the official banking system, without being subject to the oversight and guarantees imposed on licensed financial institutions.
With many of the association’s branches targeted during the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a question emerged that goes beyond both security and politics: where did the people’s gold go?
Did the bracelets, rings, and chains remain inside the targeted branches, or were they moved in advance to secret vaults? And who guarantees their recovery in an institution operating outside customary legal and regulatory frameworks, without declared transparency regarding preservation and storage mechanisms?
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From Branches to Vaults
In examining how the association operates, branches appear to function as service points rather than primary storage centers.
According to press reports, the branches’ role is limited to receiving customers, evaluating gold, completing transactions, and holding small quantities linked to daily activity—such as near-term delivery and retrieval operations. As for pledged items, they are transferred to fortified and secret locations.
These reports also indicate the retrieval mechanism: when a customer repays the full loan, they do not receive their pledged items immediately. Instead, they are asked to wait several days—sometimes up to two weeks—until the items are brought from storage locations.
This simple administrative detail reveals a more complex structure than what appears externally: a visible network of branches paired with an invisible storage system.
Underground Vaults
According to press reports, storage sites do not resemble those of traditional banks. Rather, they consist of fortified vaults beneath ordinary buildings that show no outward financial character. The number of people who know the locations of these vaults is extremely limited. The operating philosophy rests on two fixed principles: secrecy and distribution. Secrecy prevents identifying locations, while distribution prevents concentrating large quantities in a single point.
Previously, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee accused Hezbollah of hiding funds beneath residential buildings.
In October 2024, he announced the existence of a “multi-million-dollar money shelter” belonging to the group beneath Al-Sahel Hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, pointing to a hidden entrance leading to a basement where funds were stored.
In March 2026, he repeated similar accusations, stating on the platform “X” that the group had hidden millions of dollars beneath a residential building in the Bashoura district, inside a complex located on the second basement level accessible via a parking garage, adding that the site had been under armed guard before the building was targeted.
“I am not thinking about politics or security. This gold is my labor. If it is lost, what do I have left?” she asks—a question thousands of Lebanese are seeking an answer to, those who did not pawn gold for investment, but for survival.
Why This Ambiguity?
Political analyst Dr. Khaled Al-Hajj believes this pattern aligns with a security doctrine adopted by Hezbollah for years, aimed at protecting its financial structure just as it protects its military one.
Al-Hajj told Alhurra that the group “has drawn lessons from previous wars, when Al-Qard Al-Hasan branches were targeted and money was scattered, prompting it to adopt stricter models for safeguarding funds and gold.”
He added that underground storage “appears to be a logical choice given two parallel factors: the risk of military targeting on one hand, and international sanctions and tightening oversight of its funding channels on the other.”
Al-Hajj also recalled the experience of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon, “when it used to hide money and weapons in tunnels and secret warehouses, with information limited to a very small number of people. In some cases, the death or absence of those individuals led to the loss of the locations of funds for years.”
Can the Vaults Withstand?
Alongside talk of secret vaults, a technical question arises: can a safe survive an airstrike or the collapse of a building?
An official at a company specializing in security systems told Alhurra that the answer depends on the type of safe and its engineering classification.
There are highly fortified safes designed to withstand extremely high temperatures, pressure, shocks, cutting attempts, and even the collapse of a building above them—such that they can be retrieved intact from beneath the rubble.
The official noted that prices for such safes start at high levels. A small safe, roughly the size of a microwave, can cost around $10,000 depending on the thickness of the steel, insulation layers, and locking systems.
She Pawned Her Necklace to Live
Away from analysis and engineering, stand the gold owners themselves.
“Umm Hassan” told Alhurra that she pawned a gold necklace weighing about 15 grams and received $700 in return, which she repays in monthly installments of $35 over two years. She said she received a receipt confirming the deposit of the gold and was told she could recover it about 10 days after paying the final installment.
But with rising security tensions and talk of possible war, fear crept in. She asked an employee whether the gold was safe. He told her, according to her account, that it was stored outside the branches and that the association would contact customers to complete installments or repay the full amount and retrieve their gold.
During the war, “Umm Hassan” tried to contact the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association to get answers about the fate of her pledged gold, but she received no response, amid the closure of remaining branches that had not been struck.
“I am not thinking about politics or security. This gold is my labor. If it is lost, what do I have left?” she asks—a question thousands of Lebanese are seeking an answer to, those who did not pawn gold for investment, but for survival.
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Legal Protection
On the legal level, researcher in economic and financial crimes Mahasen Mersel says that “Al-Qard Al-Hasan is registered as a charitable association under a notification system, not as a licensed bank or financial institution subject to Lebanon’s Code of Money and Credit.”
The association, founded in 1982, gradually developed its activities to resemble those of commercial banks, receiving cash and gold deposits and providing loans, and even operating ATMs.
Mersel explained that the relationship between the association and its clients “falls within a civil framework, not within the banking system that imposes regulatory rules, capital adequacy, and specific guarantees.”
She believes that “the core problem arises in the event of a dispute related to retrieving gold or fulfilling obligations, as the same mechanisms that regulate clients’ rights in the formal financial sector do not exist.”
She added that “this model can be described as part of the shadow economy or parallel economy that has emerged outside the legal frameworks governing relations between financial institutions and their clients in Lebanon.”
With increasing international pressure to disarm Hezbollah and cut off its funding channels, the Lebanese central bank issued a circular last July prohibiting licensed financial institutions—including brokerage firms and collective investment bodies—from conducting any financial or commercial dealings with unlicensed institutions such as Al-Qard Al-Hasan.
In following this issue, it becomes clear that secrecy is not a secondary detail, but an integral part of the association’s business model. Storage locations are not disclosed, the volume of pledged assets is not announced, and there is no independent body capable of verifying the size of holdings or the safety of their storage.
If these security measures are a priority for the association, what clients ultimately want to know is whether their gold will be returned to them once they repay what they owe.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
