French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will pay a visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a bid to reactivate the Saudi grant to arm the Lebanese army, al-Joumhouria daily reported Friday.

Ayrault explained, during his meeting with senior Lebanese officials on Thursday, his quest to reactivate the $3 billion grant of advanced French weapons manufactured in his country.

Minister of Economy, Raed Khoury stressed on Thursday that fighting corruption is one of the priorities that the new tenure and the Free Patriotic Movement will focus on, the state-run National News Agency reported.

“Fighting corruption is the new era and the FPM's priorities,” said Khoury, stressing that price monitoring and control have begun with the start of the holidays.

President Michel Aoun held a meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and his accompanying delegation at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

Ayrault who arrived Wednesday evening, left the Baabda Palace without making a statement, NNA added.

During the first cabinet session held at the Presidential Palace in Baabda on Wednesday, President Michel Aoun made a number of “commandments” advising members of the cabinet to abide by in order to hold productive meetings away from “stalling and political debate,” al-Joumhouria daily reported Thursday.

Aoun expressed satisfaction with the course of the first cabinet meeting, saying it reflected the “current balance of power in the country.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault arrived in Beirut Wednesday evening on an official visit.

Armored personnel carriers provided by the United States to the Lebanese Armed Forces have been used by Hizbullah forces in Syria, a senior Israeli military official said on Wednesday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that a ceasefire in Syria should not cover jihadist groups like the Islamic State group and the Fatah al-Sham Front, as well as groups like Lebanon's Hizbullah which fights on the regime side.

A senior Israeli military officer said Wednesday that the army believes Middle East's chaos has weakened the country's enemies, creating a low probability of war involving Israel in 2017.

A member of the extremist group Asbat al-Ansar was shot dead in Sidon's Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh on Wednesday, sparking violence that resulted in the death of two other people and the wounding of four others, the National News Agency reported.

At the junction of the camp's vegetable market, unknown gunmen opened fired at Samer Hmeid, also known as Samer Nejmeh, and the Palestinian Abed Saleh, which resulted in the death of Hmeid on the spot and the wounding of Saleh.

Following the recent assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, the attack resonated in the capital Beirut and triggered some reactions where a group of youth wrote overnight slogans on the cement blocs surrounding the Russian embassy in Beirut's Corniche al-Mazraa area and managed to disappear, al-Joumhouria daily reported Wednesday.

A group of youth managed to sneak late on Tuesday and write slogans on the cement blocs around the embassy “denouncing the battle in Aleppo” and “declaring solidarity with the Syrian people and victims,” a security source told the daily on condition of anonymity.