Third 'armed bank withdrawal' in a week in Lebanon

When a branch of the Byblos bank opened in the southern town of Ghaziyeh, a depositor, reported to be in his 50s, stormed the premises with his adult son.

He threatened bank employes with a gun, which a Lebanese TV channel said may have been a toy, and demanded his savings.

"He emptied a jerrican of fuel on the floor," a bank security guard told an AFP reporter.

The man walked away with around $19,000 and turned himself in to the police moments later as a crowd formed in front of the bank to support him.

It was the latest in a series of heists in Lebanon, where the savings of depositors have been devalued and trapped in banks for almost three years amid a crippling economic crisis.

They are usually acts of economic desperation by depositors with no criminal record trying to settle bills, and have drawn wide sympathy among the general public.

READ: WATCH: Lebanese woman robs bank to pay for sister's cancer treatment

On Wednesday, a young woman held up a bank in central Beirut using a similar modus operandi, in what she said was an attempt to retrieve the savings of her sister, a cancer patient.

Sali Hafiz became an instant hero on social media, and a phone picture of standing on a desk inside the bank during the heist became viral.

Also on Wednesday, a man held up a bank in the city of Aley northeast of Beirut, the official National News Agency reported.

Last month, a man received widespread sympathy after he stormed a Beirut bank with a rifle and held employees and customers hostage for hours, to demand some of his $200,000 in frozen savings to pay hospital bills for his sick father.

He was detained but swiftly released.

Lebanon has been battered by one of its worst-ever economic crises.

Its currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, while poverty and unemployment have soared.