Sali Hafez tells bank employees to bring her money.

Gulf Today Report

A source of the Association for Defending the Rights of Depositors said that an woman armed with a toy pistol and her accomplices held hostages in BLOM Bank on Wednesday, and left the bank after taking $13,000 from her own account.

This is the second such incident in Lebanon in about a month, when in mid-August a man took hostages in a commercial bank to withdraw his own money to treat his sick father.

A security source said that at about 11:00 am local time on Wednesday, a woman with a pistol entered BLOM Bank in the Sodeco neighborhood of Beirut and asked for her money.

After about an hour later, she left with $13,000 in cash, said a source from the "Depositors' Scream" association, that defends Lebanese citizens whose savings are stuck in Lebanese banks.

The woman also received about six million Lebanese lira, equivalent to only $160.

The woman's mother appeared on a local TV station and said her name was Sally Hafez and that she had taken money from her own account to treat her younger sister who is suffering from cancer.

"If we did not do this, my daughter would be at risk of death,” she added.

A source in the bank confirmed in a statement that the hostage-taking had ended but did not give details of the amount withdrawn.

After the previous hostage situation in August, the suspect in the incident was arrested and later released without charges after the bank dropped his lawsuit.