BEIRUT: A Lebanese activist group on Thursday vowed to organize more bank heists to help people retrieve their locked savings as the country’s years-long economic crisis continues to worsen.
Activists from Depositors’ Outcry group accompanied Sali Hafez into a Beirut bank branch on Wednesday, and she was able to retrieve some $13,000 in her savings to fund her sister’s cancer treatment.
Hafez carried a toy gun when she walked into BLOM Bank on Wednesday, while the activists who accompanied her poured about gasoline, threatening to set the bank on fire if she did not get her money out.
The group told AP that they had also coordinated with a man who tried to take some of his money from a bank in the mountainous town of Aley. Local media said he carried an unloaded shotgun.
Lebanon’s cash-strapped banks have imposed strict limits on withdrawals of foreign currency since 2019, tying up the savings of millions of people. About three-quarters of the population has slipped into poverty as the tiny Middle East country’s economy continues to spiral.
Alaa Khorchid, the head of Depositors’ Outcry, said there is now no other choice for Lebanese bank depositors but to “take matters into their own hands.” He spoke at a press conference in Beirut.
“BLOM Bank issues a statement saying that this is a pre-orchestrated operation. Yes it is, what were you thinking?” Khorchid told reporters, referring to the bank’s statement condemning Hafez and the activists.
“And we’re organizing more than this, and you have no choice. People’s rights are sacred,” he added, addressing banks in general.
“The real beginning of the revolution started yesterday, when Sali Hafez entered the bank, and there is no turning back,” Ibrahim Abdullah, a member of the Depositors’ Outcry group said at the press conference. “This revolution is against all the banks.”
Several groups advocating and protesting for Lebanese depositors have emerged since 2019, with some — like the one named the Depositors’ Union — opting to file lawsuits against banks to help depositors retrieve their money.
Wednesday’s heist occurred weeks after a food delivery driver broke into another bank branch in Beirut and held 10 people hostage for seven hours, demanding tens of thousands of dollars in his trapped savings. Many Lebanese hailed him as a hero.
The standoff and public sympathy for those taking matters into their own hands to get their savings has exposed the depths of people’s despair in Lebanon’s economic crisis, which has pulled over three-quarters of the country’s population into poverty, unable to cope with skyrocketing food, electricity, and gasoline prices.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials struggle to implement structural reforms for an economic recovery plan approved by the International Monetary Fund to unlock billions of dollars in loans and aid to make the country viable again.
After heist, Lebanese activists promise more bank raids
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After heist, Lebanese activists promise more bank raids
- Alaa Khorchid, the head of Depositors’ Outcry, says there is now no other choice for Lebanese bank depositors
- The Lebanese activist group says it also coordinated with a man who tried to take some of his money from a bank
UNRWA chief condemns Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza
- Lazzarini said Israeli authorities’ refusal to grant access to foreign media since the beginning of the war in Gaza was unprecedented in modern conflict
AMMAN: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has sharply criticized Israel for barring international journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, calling the ongoing restriction a “ban on reporting the truth.”
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, said the Israeli authorities’ refusal to grant access to foreign media since the beginning of the war in Gaza was unprecedented in modern conflict.
“This is unlike any other conflict in contemporary history,” Lazzarini wrote in a post on X. “It essentially prevents journalists from reporting the truth from the Gaza Strip.”
He warned that the continued ban on international coverage had grave consequences, describing it as “the perfect recipe for fueling media misinformation, deepening polarization, and obscuring humanity.”
Lazzarini called for an immediate end to the ban on foreign media organizations and urged Israel to facilitate access for international journalists. He also called for support for Palestinian journalists who remain in Gaza and continue to report under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions.
“The world must not be kept in the dark,” he said.
The remarks come amid growing international concern over press freedom in Gaza, where Palestinian reporters have borne the brunt of the conflict with limited external scrutiny due to access restrictions.
UN welcomes new Libya safety and rights committees
- UNSMIL said the committees were “composed of key parties“
- The safety committee was tasked with drafting a plan to disarm non-state actors in Tripoli
TRIPOLI: The United Nations mission in Libya on Saturday welcomed the formation of two committees by the Libyan presidential council to address safety and human rights after recent deadly clashes in Tripoli.
UNSMIL said the committees were “composed of key parties,” with one aimed at “strengthening security arrangements to prevent the outbreak of fighting and ensure the protection of civilians.”
The second committee was tasked with “addressing human rights concerns in detention facilities, including widespread arbitrary detention,” it added.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
Last month, its capital was rocked by days of deadly fighting between rival armed groups that left at least eight people dead, according to the UN.
The violence was sparked by the killing of Abdelghani Al-Kikli, the leader of the Support and Stability Apparatus (SSA) armed group, by the government-backed 444 Brigade, which later took on another rival faction, Radaa.
It also came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle armed groups that he later said had “become stronger than the state.”
Earlier this week, the Libyan presidential council announced the creation of the committees in a move that Dbeibah described as necessary “to strengthen the rule of law.”
The safety committee was tasked with drafting a plan to disarm non-state actors in Tripoli and strengthen the control of official security forces, the council said.
And the human rights committee will monitor conditions in detention centers and review cases of people detained without judicial oversight.
This came after UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk raised alarm over “gross human rights violations uncovered at official and unofficial detention facilities” run by the SSA group.
UNSMIL said it was “committed to providing technical support” to the newly formed committees.
“UNSMIL stresses that these committees come at a crucial moment when Libyans are demanding meaningful reform, accountable and democratic state institutions,” it said.
Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near US-backed aid center
- Deaths latest reported near aid center run by Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in Rafah
- Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid
GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution center.
The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.
An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was meanwhile nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), “six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout.”
Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid from the GHF aid center about one kilometer (a little over half a mile) away.
AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defense agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.
The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired “warning shots” at individuals that it said were “advancing in a way that endangered the troops.”
Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.
“As soon as some people tried to advance toward the aid center, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armored vehicles stationed near the center, firing into the air and then at civilians,” Abu Hadid said.
The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month aid blockade on the territory.
UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.
The aid boat Madleen, organized by an international activist coalition, was sailing toward Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organizers said.
“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.
In a statement from London, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.
The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce the blockade.
“For this case as well, we are prepared,” army spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said on Tuesday, when asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel.
“We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly.”
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
Syrian authorities announce closure of notorious desert camp
DAMASCUS: A notorious desert refugee camp in Syria has closed after the last remaining families returned to their areas of origin, Syrian authorities said on Saturday.
The Rukban camp in Syria’s desert was established in 2014, at the height of Syria’s civil war, in a de-confliction zone controlled by the US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.
Desperate people fleeing IS jihadists and former government bombardment sought refuge there, hoping to cross into Jordan.
Former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government rarely allowed aid to enter the camp and neighboring countries closed their borders to the area, isolating Rukban for years.
After an Islamist-led offensive toppled Assad in December, families started leaving the camp to return home.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based organization, said on Friday that the camp was “officially closed and empty, all families and residents have returned to their homes.”
Syrian Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa said on X on Saturday that “with the dismantlement of the Rukban camp and the return of the displaced, a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime’s war machine comes to a close.”
“Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert,” he added.
At its peak, the camp housed more than 100,000 people. The numbers dwindled with time, especially after Jordan sealed off its side of the border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016.
Around 8,000 people still lived there before Assad’s fall, residing in mud-brick houses, with food and basic supplies smuggled in at high prices.
Syrian minister for emergency situations and disasters Raed Al-Saleh said on X said the camp’s closure represents “the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people.”
“We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety,” he added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their places of origin since Assad’s fall, after they were displaced within the country or abroad.
The IOM says the “lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge” for those returning home.
X
Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers
- The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies ‘to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza’
CAIRO: An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, has reached the Egyptian coast and is nearing the besieged Palestinian territory, organizers said on Saturday.
The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies “to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.”
“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.
In a statement from London on Saturday, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.
The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
European parliament member Rima Hassan, who is on board the vessel, urged governments to “guarantee safe passage for the Freedom Flotilla.”
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and Israel has enforced its blockade with military action in the past.
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar aid flotilla trying to breach the blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, reported coming under drone attack while en route for Gaza, prompting Cyprus and Malta to send rescue vessels in response to its distress call. There were no reports of any casualties.
Earlier in its voyage, the Madleen changed course near the Greek island of Crete after receiving a distress signal from a sinking migrant boat.
Activists rescued four Sudanese migrants who had jumped into the sea to avoid being returned to Libya. The four were later transferred to an EU Frontex vessel.
Launched in 2010, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a coalition of groups opposed to the blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza that Israel imposed on March 2 and has only partially eased since.
Israel has faced mounting international condemnation over the resulting humanitarian crisis in the territory, where the United Nations has warned the entire population of more than two million is at risk of famine.
