Instant folk hero: Lebanese woman who stole own savings says she’s not the criminal

Sali Hafiz, in green shoes, held up a Beirut branch of BLOM Bank last week, taking by force some $13,000 in savings in her sister’s account frozen by capital controls. (AFP)
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Updated 21 September 2022
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Instant folk hero: Lebanese woman who stole own savings says she’s not the criminal

  • Sali Hafiz, who held up Beirut bank, decries ‘country of mafias’
  • She was the first of at least seven savers who held up banks last week

BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon: On the run from authorities after forcing a bank to release her family savings at gunpoint to treat her cancer-stricken sister, 28-year-old Lebanese interior designer Sali Hafiz insists she is not the criminal.
“We are in the country of mafias. If you are not a wolf, the wolves will eat you,” she said, standing on a dirt track somewhere in Lebanon’s rugged eastern Bekaa valley where she has since been in hiding.
Hafiz held up a Beirut branch of BLOM Bank last week, taking by force some $13,000 in savings in her sister’s account frozen by capital controls that were imposed overnight by commercial banks in 2019 but never made legal via legislation.
Dramatic footage of the incident, in which she cocks what later turned out to be a toy gun and stands atop a desk bossing around employees who hand her wads of cash, turned her into an instant folk hero in a country where hundreds of thousands of people are locked out of their savings.
A growing number are taking matters into their own hands, exasperated by a three-year financial implosion that authorities have left to fester — leading the World Bank to describe it as “orchestrated by the country’s elite.”
Hafiz was the first of at least seven savers who held up banks last week, prompting banks to shut their doors citing security concerns, and call for security support from the government.
George Hajj of the bank employees syndicate said the holdups were misguiding anger that should be directed at the Lebanese state, which was most to blame for the crisis, and noted some 6,000 bank employees had lost their jobs since it began.
Authorities have condemned the holdups and say they are preparing a security plan for banks.
But depositors argue that bank owners and shareholders have enriched themselves by getting high interest payments for lending the government depositors’ money and are prioritising the banks over people rather than enacting an IMF rescue plan.
The government says it is working hard to implement IMF reforms and aims to secure a $3 billion bailout this year.
The series of raids have been met with widespread support, including from crowds that gather outside the banks when they hear a holdup is taking place to cheer them on.
“Maybe they saw me as a hero because I was the first woman who does this in a patriarchal society where a woman’s voice is not supposed to be heard,” Hafiz said, adding she had not intended to harm anyone but was tired of government inaction.
“They are all in cahoots to steal from us and leave us to go hungry and die slowly,” she said.
When her sister began losing hope she would be able to afford costly treatment to help regain mobility and speech impaired by brain cancer, and the bank declined to provide the savings, Hafiz said she decided to act.
BLOM Bank said in a statement that the branch had been cooperative with her request for funds but asked for documentation as they do for all customers requesting humanitarian exceptions to the informal controls.
Hafiz then returned two days later with a toy gun she had seen her nephews playing with, and a small amount of fuel that she mixed with water and spilled on to an employee.
Before her raid, she watched popular Egyptian black comedy Irhab w Kabab — or “Terrorist and Kabab” — in which a man frustrated with government corruption holds up a state building and demands kebabs for the hostages due to the high price of meat.
She managed to get $13,000 of a total $20,000 — enough to cover travel expenses for her sister and about a month of treatment — and made sure to sign a receipt so that she would not be accused of theft.
To aid her escape, Hafiz posted on Facebook that she was already at the airport and on her way to Istanbul. She ran home and disguised herself in a robe and headscarf and placed a bundle of clothes on her belly to make herself appear pregnant.
A police officer who knocked on her door “must have been scared I would give birth in front of him. I went downstairs in front of them all, like 60 or 70 people... they were wishing me luck with the birth. It was... like the movies,” she said, after they failed to recognize her.
Two of Hafiz’s close friends with her at the bank hold up were detained after the incident over charges of threatening bank employees and holding them against their will, and ordered released on bail on Wednesday.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
Hafiz said she would hand herself in once judges end a crippling strike that has slowed legal procedures and left detainees languishing in jail.
Abdallah Al-Saii, an acquaintance of Hafiz who held up a bank in January to get some $50,000 of his own savings, said more hold-ups were coming.
“Things will have to get worse so that they can get better,” Saii said, taking drags from a cigarette at his convenience store in the Bekaa.
“When the state can’t do anything for you and can’t even provide a tiny bit of hope over what lies in store, then we’re living by the law of the jungle.”


Jordanian army foils drug smuggling attempt

Updated 02 August 2025
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Jordanian army foils drug smuggling attempt

  • Smugglers use drones to smuggles drugs into the kingdom

DUBAI: The Jordanian army’s Northern Military Zone on Friday thwarted an attempt to smuggle drugs that was loaded a drone.

Border soldiers units tracked and monitored the drone, followed the rules of engagement, and dumped its package inside Jordanian territory, state news agency Petra reported, quoting a military source.

The confiscated goods were handed over to authorities, the report added.

From January until mid-July, Jordanian armed forces have intercepted an average of 51 drones each month, nearly two per day, all carrying narcotics destined for the kingdom.

Over 14.1 million narcotic pills, 92.1kg of illegal drugs and more than 10,600 slabs of hashish have been confiscated over the past six months, with a street value worth tens of millions of US dollars.


Human Rights Watch condemns Gaza aid centers as ‘death traps’

Updated 01 August 2025
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Human Rights Watch condemns Gaza aid centers as ‘death traps’

  • At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

JERUSALEM: Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centers in war-torn Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.

HIGHLIGHT

After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.

Israel and the US have backed a private aid operation run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at four sites inside Gaza, protected by US military contractors and the Israeli army.
GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that led to dire shortages of food and other essentials.
Since then, witnesses, the civil defense agency, and AFP correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centers seeking food.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” HRW’s Wille said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting the US-backed distribution center on Friday.
Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza, in a post accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a GHF distribution center.
The foundation said it had delivered its 100 millionth meal in Gaza during the visit by Witkoff and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to Gaza.
President Donald Trump “understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority. Today he sent his envoy to serve as his eyes and ears on the ground, reflecting his deep concern and commitment to doing what’s right,” GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 22 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid.

 


Jordan delivers nearly 57 tonnes of aid to Gaza in latest round of airdrops

Updated 02 August 2025
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Jordan delivers nearly 57 tonnes of aid to Gaza in latest round of airdrops

  • Aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Air Force led the effort alongside planes from the UAE, Germany, France, and Spain

AMMAN: The Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) carried out seven airdrop operations over Gaza on Friday, delivering close to 57 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including food supplies, relief items, and baby formula, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The mission, conducted in cooperation with multiple international partners, brings the total amount of aid delivered via airdrop since operations resumed last week to 148 tonnes.

Aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Air Force led the effort alongside planes from the UAE, Germany, France, and Spain. In total, the latest operation involved two Jordanian aircraft, one Emirati, two German, one French, and one Spanish.

The JAF said the airdrops were conducted under Royal directives aimed at intensifying humanitarian relief to Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive. They are part of broader Jordanian efforts to deliver urgent assistance to civilians in the besieged Strip.

In a statement, the JAF reaffirmed its commitment to its humanitarian mission “whether through airdrops or land convoys.”

Since the start of the war, Jordan has carried out 133 airdrop missions independently and participated in an additional 276 joint operations with allied nations.


Israel intercepts Houthi missile fired from Yemen

Updated 01 August 2025
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Israel intercepts Houthi missile fired from Yemen

  • The Houthis targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion airport using a Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile
  • Israel has carried out several retaliatory strikes in Yemen

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Friday, which the Iran-backed Houthi militants said they had launched.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the Israeli military said.

The Houthis targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion airport “using a ‘Palestine 2’ hypersonic ballistic missile,” their military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement.

The militants have launched repeated missile and drone attacks against Israel since their Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

The Houthis, who say they are acting in support of the Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza that ended in March, but renewed them after Israel resumed major operations.

Israel has carried out several retaliatory strikes in Yemen, targeting Houthi-held ports and the airport in the militant-held capital Sanaa.`


A settler accused of killing a Palestinian activist is to be freed, as Israel still holds the body

Updated 01 August 2025
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A settler accused of killing a Palestinian activist is to be freed, as Israel still holds the body

  • Witnesses said one of the shots killed Awdah Hathaleen, an English teacher and father of three
  • The Israeli military is still holding Hathaleen’s body and says it will only be returned if the family agrees to bury him in a nearby city

TEL AVIV: An Israeli settler accused of killing a prominent Palestinian activist during a confrontation captured on video in the occupied West Bank will be released from house arrest, an Israeli court ruled Friday.

The video shot by a Palestinian witness shows Yinon Levi brandishing a pistol and tussling with a group of unarmed Palestinians. He can be seen firing two shots, but the video does not show where the bullets hit.

Witnesses said one of the shots killed Awdah Hathaleen, an English teacher and father of three, who was uninvolved and was standing nearby.

The Israeli military is still holding Hathaleen’s body and says it will only be returned if the family agrees to bury him in a nearby city. It said the measure was being taken to “prevent public disorder.”

The confrontation occurred on Monday in the village of Umm Al-Khair, in an area of the West Bank featured in “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary about settler violence and life under Israeli military rule.

In a court decision obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Havi Toker wrote that there was “no dispute” that Levi shot his gun in the village that day, but she said he may have been acting in self-defense and that the court could not establish that the shots killed Hathaleen.

Israel’s military and police did not respond to a request for comment on whether anyone else may have fired shots that day. Multiple calls placed to Levi and his lawyer have not been answered.

The judge said Levi did not pose such a danger as to justify his continued house arrest but barred him from contact with the villagers for a month.

Levi has been sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries over allegations of past violence toward Palestinians. President Donald Trump lifted the US sanctions on Levi and other radical settlers shortly after returning to office.

A total of 18 Palestinians from the village were arrested after the incident. Six remain in detention.

Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer who has lobbied for sanctions against radical settlers, including Levi, said the court ruling did not come as a surprise.

“Automatically, Palestinian victims are considered suspects, while Jewish suspects are considered victims,” he said.

Levi helped establish an settler outpost near Umm Al-Khair that anti-settlement activists say is a bastion for violent settlers who have displaced hundreds since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Palestinians and rights groups have long accused Israeli authorities of turning a blind eye to settler violence, which has surged since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, along with attacks by Palestinians.

In a 2024 interview, Levi said he was protecting his own land and denied using violence.

Some 70 women in Umm Al-Khair said they were beginning a hunger strike on Friday to call for Hathaleen’s body to be returned and for the right of his family to bury him in the village.

Israel’s military said in a statement to the AP that it would return the body if the family agrees to bury him in the “nearest authorized cemetery.”

Hathaleen, 31, had written and spoke out against settler violence, and had helped produce the Oscar-winning film. Supporters have erected murals in his honor in Rome, held vigils in New York and have held signs bearing his name at anti-war protests in Tel Aviv.