The members of the U.N. Security Council announced Thursday that they “took note of the appointment of Najib Mikati as the new designated Prime Minister on 23 June, as well as the presentation by the latter of his government line-up to the President of the Republic of Lebanon on 29 June.”  

An Israeli drone has killed a man who hails from the Syrian town of Hadar in Quneitra's northern countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Senior Hezbollah official Sayyed Hashem Saffieddine on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib without naming them, in connection with their criticism of Hezbollah's sending of three drones on Saturday towards the Karish gas field.

The French judiciary has charged three French citizens with attempting to bribe Lebanese judges in one of the files related to the probe into Libya's financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign.

Israel expects “major progress” in the negotiations over sea border demarcation with Lebanon, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation quoted a senior source as saying.

President Michel Aoun had said overnight that the negotiations “will be finalized soon” and that "the solution will satisfy everyone."

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday that the three drones that Hezbollah launched toward the disputed Karish gas field on Saturday were Iranian.

“Hezbollah used unmanned aerial vehicles made in Iran," Gantz said as he accused Hezbollah of carrying out missions for Iran.

The Israeli army has claimed that it had detected and shot down another Hezbollah drone last week.

“The army detected last Wednesday a drone heading towards Israel’s economic waters from the Lebanese side," Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said Wednesday evening in a tweet.

Lebanon's LGBTQ community, long among the most vocal and visible in the Middle East, has been targeted by a crackdown that has seen queer activists harassed and Pride gatherings cancelled.

It has heaped pressure on a community that already lost many of its safe spaces in the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion and been depleted by an exodus driven by Lebanon's severe economic crisis. 

President Michel Aoun has reassured that the sea border negotiations between Lebanon and Israel “will be finalized soon” and that “the solution will satisfy everyone.”

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab has said that there is a chance to finalize the sea border demarcation negotiations during the remaining few months of President Michel Aoun’s term.

“We have a chance to achieve that within two months to pave the way for returning to Naqoura,” Bou Saab said in an interview with the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper.