State Security police arrested on Friday two suspects involved in the possession and selling of hash and narcotics pills, the National News Agency reported.

MP Assem Araji stressed on Friday that the Lebanese army is the sole side authorized to defend the country's border.

“The army is the sole side authorized to confront armed groups and defend the border” said Araji, adding that “the military institution enjoys full (people's) support in order to preserve the security in Arsal and the safety of the displaced,” said Araji in an interview to VDL (93.3).

The Lebanese army on Friday upped its security measures in the northeastern border town of Arsal to keep militants from infiltrating into the town, as Hizbullah launched an offensive against jihadists in the border area, media reports said.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Thursday described violation fines imposed by the parliament on illegal maritime property along Lebanon's coastline as a “farce”.

“What a farce that maritime property violators are to pay fines for one time only. It seems the lawmakers have not noticed how many the violations are,” said Jumblat in a tweet.

Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan on Thursday said the Lebanese people were granted “a long-standing right” after the parliament’s approval of the wage scale, and stressed the necessity to have a “balanced” state budget.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri traveled to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday where he held talks with the newly appointed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, his media office said in a statement Thursday.

Hariri flew back to Beirut Thursday morning.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught Wednesday by a live microphone making a rare public admission that Israel has struck Iranian arms convoys in Syria bound for Hizbullah "dozens and dozens of times."

Netanyahu was also heard railing against the European Union's "crazy" insistence on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a precondition for closer ties with the 28-state bloc, and trumpeting Israel as essential to its prosperity and survival.

The parliament convened in a second legislative session on Wednesday, under the chairmanship of Speaker Nabih Berri, and approved a number of laws that introduced tax provisions that secured revenues to finance the wage scale after it was approved during Tuesday's session.

At the beginning of the meeting, the council approved an amendment to Article 10 which imposes an amount of 5000 Lebanese pounds on non-Lebanese passengers upon their entry into Lebanon.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch on Wednesday arrested a group of Lebanese young men who appeared in a video posted on social media beating up and shouting xenophobic insults at a young Syrian man, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said.

The video, which has sparked outrage on social networking websites, shows the Lebanese men kicking the Syrian man as he sobs and cowers on the ground. They also ask him to curse his country, the jihadist Islamic State group and to repeat slogans supportive of President Michel Aoun, the Lebanese army and Army chief General Joseph Aoun.

Efforts to uncover the fate of Lebanese servicemen abducted by the Islamic State terror group are “ongoing away from media spotlight,” and the “military leadership is doing everything it can” in that regard, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

In an interview to the daily, a security source who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “Let us stop the bidding in the file of hostaged servicemen. The military leadership is doing everything it can and will not hesitate to open any possible channel that could lead to results.”