Woman Holds Up Beirut Bank Branch To Get Her Own Savings

A Lebanese woman armed with a toy handgun stormed a branch of her bank in Beirut to demand money from her own savings account. The woman said she needed her own savings, $13,000 of it, to pay for her sister’s cancer treatments, but was only allowed to withdraw $200 a month in Lebanese pounds. Banks in Lebanon have frozen their depositors’ accounts since Lebanon has been in a financial crisis since 2019, causing the national currency to lose 90% of its value. The woman and several activists forced their way into the bank branch on Wednesday using the toy gun and carrying cans of gasoline, which they threatened to use to set the bank alight if the money was not forthcoming. The woman, named as Sali Hafez, told the local Al-Jadeed TV that she felt she had nothing to lose by attacking the bank, and that she had already sold many of her personal belongings and had considered selling her kidney to fund her sister’s cancer treatments. She was not arrested or charged after the incident – and she got her money.