A man armed with a shotgun broke into the Federal Bank in Hamra on Thursday, holding employees hostage and threatening to set himself ablaze with gasoline unless he receives his trapped savings, a security official said.
The man was carrying a canister of gasoline and held six or seven bank employees hostage, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The man also fired three warning shots, the official said. Local media reported that he has about $200,000 stuck in the bank.
The man “threatened to set himself on fire and to kill everyone in the branch, pointing his weapon in the bank manager’s face,” said the National News Agency.
A customer at the bank who fled the building as the situation escalated, told local media that the man was demanding to withdraw $2,000 dollars to pay for his hospitalized father’s medical bills. However, quoting a negotiator, MTV said the man rejected $10,000 proposed to him by the bank.
Media reports said the man’s name is Bassem Sheikh Hussein and is 42 years old.
His brother Atef al-Sheikh Hussein told journalists: “My brother has $210,000 in the bank and wants to get just $5,000 to pay hospital bills.”
His brother had grabbed the weapon “from the bank and did not bring it with him”.
A video circulating on social media showed two people negotiating with the armed man behind the bank’s iron door.
He replied angrily, wielding the rifle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
He later released one hostage, an AFP correspondent at the scene said, as dozens of onlookers and relatives of the hostages gathered outside.
Witnesses claimed that the depositor has been trying since days to withdraw from the bank the amount for a surgical operation for this father and that the bank has refused to hand him the money.
Army soldiers, police officers from the Internal Security Forces, and intelligence agents surrounded the area, as the armed depositor asked the armed forces to leave the place, while citizens gathered at the place, some of them supporting the depositor.
Officers tired to talk to the armed man to reach a settlement, but have thus far been unsuccessful.
Many supporters considered that citizens have the right to withdraw their money and that authorities have left the depositors with no other choices.
“We could have been in his position,” a citizen said.
“This is not the first such case, similar incidents keep happening, we need a radical solution,” George al-Hajj, who heads Lebanon’s bank employees union, told AFP outside the bank.
“Depositors want their money, and unfortunately their anger explodes in the face of bank employees because they cannot reach the management.”
Those who are against the use of violence still decried the economic situation and stressed the right of the Lebanese to withdraw their savings, protesting the banks policies.
Since late 2019, Lebanon’s cash-strapped banks have implemented strict withdrawal limits on foreign currency assets, effectively evaporating the savings of many Lebanese.
The country today is suffering from the worst economic crisis in its modern history, where three-quarters of the population have plunged into poverty.
Citizens who have accounts in dollars have limited access to their deposits amid an unprecedented collapse of the Lebanese pound.
These dollars trapped in the banks are now locally known as “lollars”.
Months ago, a depositor also detained dozens of employees and clients in a bank in the town of Jib Jennine in West Bekaa, and then turned himself in to security forces after receiving his money.
“What led us to this situation is the state’s failure to resolve this economic crisis and the banks’ and Central Bank’s actions, where people can only retrieve some of their own money as if it’s a weekly allowance,” said Dina Abou Zor, a lawyer with the advocacy group Depositors’ Union who was among the protesters. “And this has led to people taking matters into their own hands.”
Abou Zor said Hussein’s wife told her the family is heavily indebted and struggling to make ends meet.
Dania Sharif said her sister, who serves coffee and tea at the bank, was among the hostages and had not been harmed by the gunman. “He just wants his money,” Sharif said, standing outside the bank. “I will not leave until my sister comes out.”