President Joseph Aoun met Monday with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and discussed with him the preparations for Friday’s important cabinet session that will tackle the army’s plan for arms monopolization.

Salam also briefed Aoun on the outcome of his latest visit to Egypt and his talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and a number of top officials.

Violent Israeli airstrikes on Sunday targeted the Ali al-Taher hills in the southern area of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, an area that has been bombed several times since the November ceasefire.

The Israeli army claimed the strikes hit a site run by Hezbollah.

Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri said Saturday that “Hezbollah, the army and the government have agreed to avoid confrontation.”

Army Commander General Rodolphe Haykal held an extraordinary meeting Friday with the army’s command and top officers to discuss “the developments that Lebanon and the army are going through amid the current extraordinary period, amid the Israeli enemy’s violations and attacks.”

“The army is shouldering great responsibilities on all levels, and it will face a delicate stage in which it will assume sensitive missions,” Haykal said, according to an army statement.

UNIFIL on Friday expressed its heartfelt condolences to the Lebanese Army and the families of the personnel who lost their lives in yesterday’s Israeli drone explosion in Naqoura, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured. 

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has revealed that he had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their latest meeting in Israel to “give Lebanon a break.”

“Give Lebanon a break, give them a whiff of tolerance and understanding. You can’t be apparently so brutal on everybody,” Barrack said he told Netanyahu, in an interview with Mario Nawfal on the X platform.

Hardline Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has stressed that “it’s time for Hezbollah to go.”

“They are trained by Iran, they are loyal to Iran, and we’re looking for military power in Lebanon to be loyal to the Lebanese people and a good partner to the region,” Graham, who is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, after meeting officials in Lebanon and Israel.

An Israeli drone strike on Friday targeted a car in the southern town of Seer al-Gharbiyeh, killing one person, the state-run National News Agency said.

Israel has kept up its strikes on Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.

The Army Command on Friday stressed that it is “executing its missions with the highest levels of responsibility, professionalism and keenness on the country’s security and internal stability, in line with the political authority’s decisions and out of commitment to performing duties no matter the difficulties.”

The Command also called on media outlets “not to tackle the affairs of the military institution and launch speculations about its decisions,” urging them to “return to its official statements to obtain accurate information.”

Four members of the American University of Beirut (AUB) community have been appointed to the recently formed Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO, a body that gathers experts and public figures to advance education, culture, science, and communication in Lebanon, in line with UNESCO’s mission.

Two of the commission’s standing committees will be chaired by AUB faculty. Dr. Nadine Panayot, curator of the AUB Archaeological Museum and associate professor of practice, was chosen to preside over the Education and Culture Committee. She described education and culture as “our true capital and a vital foundation for a sustainable Lebanon,” adding that she was honored to take on this role under the leadership of Minister of Culture Ghassan Salameh.