Lebanon's Health Ministry has expressed its “great surprise” over Kuwait's decision to add eight Lebanese hospitals to a sanctions list over supposed terrorism links.
The ministry said it had not received any notification of a move “inconsistent" with Kuwait's previous support for Lebanon's healthcare system during the country's economic crisis.
The hospitals listed by Kuwait are private and “an essential part of the Lebanese health system”, the ministry said.
The eight hospitals listed in a circular from Kuwait's Foreign Ministry on Sunday are spread across Lebanon – in the south, the Bekaa Valley in the east, and in Beirut's southern suburbs. These areas are regarded as pro-Hezbollah. Lebanon's Minister of Health, Rakan Nassereddine, was nominated for the position by Hezbollah.
Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai said the decision to impose sanctions on the hospitals "was taken by the committee responsible for implementing UN Security Council resolutions issued under Chapter VII, which relate to combating terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.
Last summer, the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry imposed sanctions on the Al Qard Al Hassan Association, a Lebanese financial organisation seen as close to Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed armed group, which also has a political wing, is designated a terrorist organisation by a number of countries including Gulf states, the US, Britain and Germany.
Israel has regularly attacked medical centres in Lebanon that it claimed were connected to Hezbollah, without providing evidence. During the peak of its 2024 war with Hezbollah, Israel claimed the Sahel General Hospital in Beirut's southern suburbs was sitting above a bunker stashed with millions of dollars of Hezbollah cash and gold, as well as a lair used by the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated by Israel a short time earlier.
Sahel General was not on the Kuwaiti list.
