A woman accompanied by activists and brandishing what she said was a toy pistol broke into a Beirut bank branch on Wednesday, taking $13,000 from her trapped savings.
Hafez said in a live-streamed video she posted on her Facebook account that she did not intend to do harm. “I did not break into the bank to kill anyone or set the place on fire,” she said. “I am here to get my rights.”
Some of the activists entered the bank with Hafez, while others staged a protest at the entrance. Hafez eventually left with cash in a plastic bag, witnesses said. Meanwhile, Alaa Khorchid who heads the Depositors' Outcry protest group said that a man communicating and coordinating with the group broke into a bank in the mountainous town of Aley to retrieve his trapped savings. Local media reported that the man entered the BankMed branch alone with a shotgun without any shells loaded, but was unable to retrieve his savings before he was apprehended.
“There is no government, no economic recovery plan, and little reserves left,” Khorchid told the AP, adding that people have no choice but to “take matters into their own hands”.
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