Hostage standoff at Lebanese bank ends

A bank customer in Beirut on Thursday threatened to set himself on fire unless he was allowed to withdraw his $210,000 in savings, allegedly to pay for his father’s medical bills. Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, 42, reportedly entered the Federal Bank of Lebanon with a shotgun and a canister of gasoline and took several people hostage. Authorities negotiated with Hussein for hours, and eventually reached a deal with him and the bank in which he would receive part of his savings, according to local media. Hussein then let the hostages go and surrendered.

Why did this happen? It isn’t the first time: In January, a coffee shop owner managed to withdraw $50,000 after he threatened to kill several bank employees he was holding hostage. Lebanon is in the middle of the worst economic crisis in its modern history. The value of the country’s currency has plummeted 90 percent against the U.S. dollar. Dina Abou Zor, a lawyer with the Depositors’ Union advocacy group, says the situation has arisen as a result of Lebanese banks’ decision to limit how much people can withdraw from their accounts—“as if it’s a weekly allowance.”

Dig deeper: Read Mindy Belz’s report from the WORLD archives about how a 2020 explosion rocked the Christian community in Beirut.