P rotesters in Lebanon have turned their ire towards banks during a “week of rage”, attacking financial institutions that many blame for the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Nearly 300 banks and ATMs were targeted during demonstrations across the country, according to police. There has been a large number of protests in a busy commercial district of the capital Beirut, which sparked running battles with police for several nights in a row. Some 352 people were arrested during the disturbances, before eventually being released following protests outside police stations.

Lebanon has been paralysed by large-scale demonstrations for three months, driven by anger at the country’s sectarian political class, entrenched corruption and an economic crisis.

The country is one of the most indebted in the world, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 152 per cent. In the 2016 budget, interest payments accounted for almost half of all government spending.

The economic crisis has deepened in recent weeks as banks have imposed informal capital controls, which have placed restrictions on how much money customers can withdraw. As the value of the Lebanese pound continues to slide, many people are seeing their savings disappear.

Protesters say anger over the actions of the banks during the crisis has been fuelled by a long-held perception that the financial industry has a symbiotic relationship with Lebanon’s political class that has enriched a small, corrupt few, at the expense of the entire country.

“We believe the banks are part of the oligarchy ruling Lebanon. The banks revolve around political figures here,” says 23-year-old Ziad Eldanaf, a philosophy student, at a protest outside Lebanon’s central bank on Thursday evening.

Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Show all 16 1 /16 Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Protestors burn buildings in downtown Beirut The protests in Lebanon began as a spontaneous burst of anger over new taxes. On October 17, mostly young men came on to the streets in the capital Beirut and across the country. They clashed with police and lit fires. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A large fire is constructed near Lebanon's parliament building The new taxes included a levy on the messaging service WhatsApp. In a country where people were already struggling, it was the final nail in the coffin. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Protesters fight running battles with police Protesters continued to clash with police into the second night. Downtown Beirut became a battleground as volleys of tear gas rained down on demonstrators. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests The joker makes an appearance By the third day, the mood changed. The violence of the first two nights ebbed and numbers swelled. People came out by their thousands across the country. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Protesters occupy an abandoned theatre in downtown Beirut The protesters took control of the streets. They also reclaimed public space that had been off limits to them for years. This image was taken from a grand theatre in downtown Beirut that had been shuttered since the civil war. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Protesters look down from an abandoned building Here, two protesters look towards downtown from the top of a building nicknamed "the egg" for its dome-like structure. It was part of a complex that was under construction when war broke out in 1975, and it has remained empty and off-limits ever since. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A protester faces off with a police officer Women have played a key role in these protests. They have been on the frontline of demonstrations and sit-ins — which had a marked effect reducing violence. For the first week, police didn't know how to deal with them. In this picture, a woman police officer tries to negotiate with a protester to remove a road block. She was part of a team of women police officers sent out on this day. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A group of women resists police attempts to remove their sit-in This image was taken during a police attempt to remove people from blocking a road. Again, the presence of woman at the front of the sit-in led to the police abandoning the attempt. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A woman chants at a roadblock protest on Beirut's ring road Protesters said the road blocks were vital in keeping up pressure on the government. Without them, they would be ignored. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A living room is set up on one of Beirut's busiest roads Some of the roadblocks were more relaxed than others. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Tens of thousands pack Tripoli's Nour Square The protests may have started in Beirut, but they have sprung up around the country. This photograph was taken in Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city. Protests there have outsized those in the capital Beirut. The city has been called the "bride of the revolution." Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests The crowd looks up as a singer performs for protesters in Tripoli's Nour Square The scenes in Tripoli are even more remarkable given its recent history. For years it has been plagued by extremism and violence. These mass displays of unity in the city's main square every night have done a lot to counter other Lebanese citizens' perception of Tripoli. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Young men take photographs of protests in Tripoli's Nour Square Tripoli is also one of Lebanon's poorest cities. The protests here have been fuelled by desperation of poor people struggling to get by. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Police protect protesters from Hezbollah supporters But the protests have not been without their opponents. As demonstrations entered their second week, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement began to show anger at protesters for their demand that all Lebanon's political leaders stand down. In this image, police stand between protesters and a group of Hezbollah supporters in downtown Beirut. Clashes broke out when they left. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests A group of Hezbollah and Amal supporters attacks peaceful protesters in Beirut The worst violence of the protests came towards the end of the second week. Several hundred supporters of Hezbollah and its political ally Amal attacked protesters who were blocking the main ring road in Beirut. Afterwards, they stormed into downtown and destroyed a protest encampment. Richard Hall / The Independent Lebanon rocked by nationwide protests Protesters pile tent poles in downtown Beirut after they were destroyed by Hezbollah and Amal supporters But the protesters came back to the main square, made a mountain from the poles of destroyed tents and placed a flag in it. The same day, Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri resigned, given protesters their first major victory. Richard Hall / The Independent

Nour Jadid, a 23-year-old who works in marketing and was also at the protest, says no one trusts the banks to fix the mess they made.

“They can’t fix it. They have lied about how much they have in savings and now it is showing. This is why we are having this crisis. We don’t trust them anymore.”

At the root of Lebanon’s economic crisis is an unbalanced economy that was propped up for years by unsustainable financial engineering.

Lebanon relies on imports from abroad. Keeping these import costs stable required the country’s currency to be pegged to the US dollar, and maintaining that peg required a regular supply of dollars into the country.

Most of this supply came from remittances from abroad, but as they have slowed in recent years, Lebanon’s central bank pushed interest rates sky-high to entice depositors.

But it was not enough. When the financial crisis began to bite, people began withdrawing their money from Lebanon; dollars were also increasingly scarce because local banks had deposited their customers’ money in the central bank to profit from high interest rates. The dollar peg became unsustainable and the value of the Lebanese pound dropped dramatically.

The crisis has seen people’s salaries cut and the price of food and goods skyrocket. Many now fear their savings will be wiped out.

To stop the haemorrhaging of money from the financial system, banks placed informal restrictions on how much money their customers can withdraw. These controls have stoked public anger and led to almost daily confrontations and fights at banks between staff and customers.

In one video that was posted online and later went viral, a woman is seen weeping inside a bank after being told she cannot withdraw her money. In another, a man launches himself into a scuffle between police and bank customers during a confrontation.

“To the public, the banks are the face of a business elite that has capitalised and got into bed with the political elite and made a lot of money,” says Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut.

“The banks are at the heart of this economic crisis. Their behaviour over the past few years has contributed to the situation that we are in today.”

The restrictions on withdrawals have added insult to injury, she adds.

“The feeling is now that you guys made a lot of money and yet we don’t have access to our savings, to our salaries. It’s very humiliating the way the banks are dealing with the public,” according to Dr Yahya.

“This isn’t affecting the politicians, of course,” says Eldanaf, the philosophy student. “It’s not a formal thing, the banks can give money if they know the person or they have power. It is the people who don’t have connections who are being damaged by this.”

After three months of demonstrations, Lebanon appears no closer to finding its way out of the crisis. In a country where politics is usually divided along sectarian lines, protesters have called for a complete overhaul of the sectarian political system and a technocratic government.

Lebanon’s former prime minister, Saad Hariri, resigned two weeks into the demonstrations. Hassan Diab, a little-known former minister, was nominated by Hezbollah and its political allies – which make up the largest bloc in parliament – to form a new government.

But protesters have become frustrated with the slow progress, which prompted the “week of rage”. The paralysis also prompted a rare intervention from the United Nations’ special coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis.

“Another day of confusion around the formation of a government, amidst the increasingly angry protests and free-falling economy. Politicians, don’t blame the people, blame yourselves for this dangerous chaos,” he wrote on Twitter.

Among the protesters who have taken to the streets over the past three months, there now exists a keen awareness about the culprits of Lebanon’s woes, and a new focus to target them.

“We have always known what is causing the problems, but we couldn’t change anything without the numbers of people in the street,” says Jadid, the protester.