Unknown assailants opened fire on Monday at policemen from the Drug Control Office of the Internal Security Forces as it was preparing to destroy cannabis fields in al-Olaiq village in the eastern city of Baalbeck.

The National News Agency reported that the “force and the tractors that accompanied it came under an armed ambush after unknown assailants opened fire at it.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati has failed to bridge the gap between the cabinet’s centrist forces and mainly Hizbullah over the clause on the international tribunal in the policy statement, ministerial sources said.

The sources told al-Liwaa daily that consultations that Miqati held over the weekend away from the media spotlight failed to strike a deal between the two sides. The premier received a proposal from the Shiite party on the clause but the suggestion does not meet with Miqati’s own vision, the sources added.

The March 14-led opposition said Monday that this week would be decisive in terms of the majority’s effort to draft the cabinet policy statement amid reports that the indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination would be issued soon.

Opposition sources told An Nahar daily that differences between the majority’s different parties are not expected to last long because the pro-government forces will be compelled to draft the policy statement before the indictment’s release.

Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a large-scale military operation on southern Lebanon if the security situation continues to deteriorate in the region.

“Hizbullah has turned most of the villages in southern Lebanon into explosive spots,” security sources told the Israeli radio.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is expected to make a request to Lebanese authorities to question five Hizbullah members in the next few days after Lebanese judges traveled to The Hague ahead of the expected release of the indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case, informed sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Monday that the names of the five people would remain confidential for a short period.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel on Sunday wondered “whether Prime Minister Najib Miqati will be able to reconcile between what he’s been saying regarding keenness on (Lebanon’s) international relations … and the objectives of Hizbullah, which had designated him” as premier.

In an interview on Al-Jadeed television, Gemayel added: “We have no problem with PM Miqati or with the ministers, but the government was formed for certain purposes: preserving (Hizbullah’s) weapons and abolishing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday hoped Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s new government will shoulder its responsibilities without resorting to “one sided or spiteful” acts.

Upon his arrival in Beirut from a one-week visit to the Vatican during which he met with Pope Benedict XVI, several Holy See officials and a number of Lebanes expats, al-Rahi said: “We hope this government will truly shoulder its responsibilities and work in service of everyone and not in a one-sided or spiteful manner as some are claiming.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Lebanon on Sunday noted that “the ICRC and the Lebanese Red Cross are not planning to build a camp for Syrian refugees in northern Lebanon.”

The clarification came in response to a media report published by Ad-Diyar newspaper and circulated by a number of news websites.

Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh on Sunday stressed that Lebanon can only survive through “consensus and unity among its various sects.”

“Throughout all the periods of our political action, we have not caused losses to the country like others did,” Franjieh said, addressing the cadres of his movement during a lecture in the northern town of Bnachii.

Head of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc, former premier Fouad Saniora, vowed Sunday that the March 14 camp will hold onto its stances and “remain committed to its values and principles.”

“In the face of the coup and those who have staged a coup against the democratic system by means of force and intimidation, we won’t be dragged into using force as a method,” Saniora pledged.