People in Lebanon are robbing banks and staging sit-ins to access their own savings

Lebanese activists gather outside a local bank in support of Abed Soubra, who stormed the branch demanding access to his own accounts, in Beirut on Sept 16. Lebanese police detained Soubra after he entered the bank and, armed with a gun, demanded access to his deposits. It was the third such incident in Lebanon that week alone. (Marwan Naamani/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — On a recent weekday in Lebanon's second-largest city, the atmosphere at a branch of the IBL Bank is tense. Security and police are gathered outside. Soldiers are clutching M16 rifles. People are crowding the entrance.

Inside, Zahra Khaled, a 53-year-old in a wheelchair who's in urgent need of medical care, is refusing to leave until she is given her savings. The bank has frozen all of it — tens of thousands of dollars. After selling personal possessions and exhausting all other options, she and her adult daughter have now entered the bank and will not budge.