Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji met Sunday in Qatar with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting that prepared for Monday’s emergency Arab-Islamic summit.
The talks extensively tackled the situations in Lebanon and the region, with Rajji emphasizing upon the Lebanese government’s decision to monopolize arms and extend the state’s sovereignty across the country.
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President Joseph Aoun met Monday in Doha with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on the sidelines of an emergency Arab-Islamic summit that will be held in Qatar to discuss Israel’s latest attack on Hamas members in the Qatari capital.
During the meeting, Aoun reiterated his condemnation of the Israeli attack and stressed Lebanon’s “solidarity with Qatar and the brotherly Qatari people,” thanking Doha for “the support it has offered to Lebanon during the various circumstances.”
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The Lebanese Army was on Saturday handed over five truckloads of weapons from the Ain al-Hilweh camp and another three from the al-Beddawi camp as part of an ongoing disarmament process.
So far only the Fatah Movement has handed over weapons from several camps in Beirut and its suburbs and the southern region of Tyre.
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Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has condemned a "provocative" tour by the Israeli army's spokesperson Avichay Adraee in the southern town of al-Khiam.
In a statement, Salam described the tour in occupied Lebanese territories as an "aggressive behavior", calling on the international community to "exert maximum pressure on Israel to completely withdraw from the Lebanese territories it still occupies and to stop its land, sea, and air violations."
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The handover of Palestinian weapons at the Ain al-Hilweh and al-Beddawi refugee camps will begin Saturday and continue for three days, the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee announced on Friday.
“Dialogue with Hamas is ongoing for the handover of its weapons,” Committee sources told Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel, adding that they expect the file to be finalized at the end of the month.
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The government has named regulatory authorities for the country's electricity and telecommunications sectors, Information Minister Paul Morcos said late Thursday after a cabinet session.
Naming a regulatory authority for Lebanon's corruption-plagued electricity sector has been a key demand by international organizations.
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Two people were wounded Friday in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the southern town of Aita al-Jabal, as Israel seemed to intensify its strikes on Lebanon despite a ceasefire reached in late November.
Israeli soldiers also detonated a house Friday in the outskirts of the border town of Aitaroun.
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The U.S. Department of War has approved a Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) package for Lebanon with an estimated value of $14.2 million.
“The PDA package will build the capability and capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to dismantle weapons caches and military infrastructure of non-state groups, including Hezbollah,” the Department said in a statement.
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President Joseph Aoun said Thursday, after a meeting with French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian, that the Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal are preventing the army from completing its deployment in south Lebanon, urging France and the U.S. to put more pressure on Israel.
Le Drian had told Aoun during the meeting that Lebanon's plan to disarm Hezbollah is a positive development that would lead to increased international support.
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A second group of Syrian refugees returned home from Lebanon on Thursday under a plan the United Nations developed with the Lebanese government following the downfall of Bashar Assad’s rule in December.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that over 300 Syrian individuals returned home with transportation provided from Beirut, crossing through Masnaa border, to drop-off points in Hama, Homs and Idlib governorates in Syria.
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