Robin Hood raiders are holding up banks so people can access their savings

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Advocacy group Depositors’ Outcry said people were at breaking point amid an economic crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands pushed into poverty and struggling to pay their bills.

“And we’re organising more than this, and you have no choice. People’s rights are sacred,” said Alla Khorchid, the head of the group.

Other incidents on Friday included a man in his 50s accompanied by his son holding up a Byblos Bank in the southern city of Ghazieh and a man armed with a pellet gun storming a branch of LGB Bank in Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda.

So far “robbers” have been arrested and released without charge.

The interior minister called for an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon.

Lebanon has been hit by one of the world’s worst-ever economic crises since a financial crash in 2019. Its currency has lost more than 90 per cent of its value on the black market, while poverty and unemployment have soared.

Banks have been widely accused of operating like a cartel and spiriting large amounts out of the country for senior Lebanese officials at a time when foreign transfers are already blocked for ordinary citizens.

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