Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Monday said the novel coronavirus is “not a pandemic” in Lebanon assuring that cancellation of a flight that was scheduled to land in Beirut was a “proof that the cabinet decision to suspend flights from infected countries came into effect.”

Thousands of mourners thronged the coffins of five Hizbullah fighters whose funeral was held Sunday in Beirut's southern suburbs after they were killed in neighboring Syria's northwestern Idlib region.

The fighters were among at least eight Hizbullah members who died Friday in Turkish attacks amid fierce fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and Turkish troops and allied militiamen. The deaths marked the highest for Hizbullah in Syria in years.

Lebanon on Sunday confirmed three new coronavirus cases, raising the overall tally to ten.

“Three new lab-verified cases of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 have been recorded,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Hasan Fadlallah on Sunday defended Hizbullah’s participation in the ongoing battle in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib near Turkey’s border, hours after Hizbullah announced the death of eight of its fighters there.

“The Islamic Resistance martyrs who ascended yesterday were through their blood trying to thwart an attempt by the takfiri groups and the states that back them to spread their presence once again in Syria,” Fadlallah said at a memorial service for one of the slain fighters in the southern town of Kfardounin.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called on Lebanese authorities to adopt a “more serious approach” in its measures against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“The biggest concern is the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which is threatening the safety of citizens be them young or old,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is in favor of banks imposing capital control on depositors but he does not support a haircut, a media report said.

“Speaker Nabih Berri supports capital controls that would preserve the money of depositors through allowing withdrawals in the form of installments,” sources told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper in remarks published Sunday.

Hizbullah lost at least eight fighters in northwest Syria in skirmishes with insurgents and airstrikes by Turkey's air force, an opposition war monitor and the Iran-backed group said.

The casualties followed the death of at least 33 Turkish soldiers earlier this week.

Japan has said it would send a deputy justice minister to Lebanon after failed attempts to get former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn to return for trial on financial misconduct charges.

One member of the Lebanese Army was killed and a second was injured on Saturday in an ambush in the al-Shawagir area in Hermel, the National News Agency reported on Saturday.

A statement released by the Army’s Orientation Directorate said the two soldiers were heading via their vehicle to visit someone in Hermel, when their car was ambushed by gunmen.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday called on Saudi nationals to postpone unnecessary travel to Lebanon amid concerns over coronavirus.