Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn said Monday that the authorities know the identity of militants launching rockets on Israel in an attempt to destabilize southern Lebanon.

“We know who is launching the rockets, who is making them, who is making the explosives and who is destabilizing the South,” Ghosn told As Safir newspaper.

The cabinet is expected to swiftly issue the decree on the controversial wage hike during its session on Wednesday, according to al-Liwaa newspaper.

Sources denied that the appointments of the top civil servants to administrative posts reserved for Christians, among them the Higher Judicial Council, will be tackled during the session.

The prices of red diesel dropped by LL3,000 to reach LL27,100 on Monday in accordance with a government decision made last week.

The cabinet cancelled the Value Added Tax on red diesel saying the removal of the tax would be effective as of Monday.

Lebanese security forces have gone on alert to “closely monitor” the situation in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh after the assassination of a bodyguard of Palestinian Armed Struggle chief Mahmoud Issa.

An Nahar daily on Monday quoted informed sources as saying that the security forces are “closely monitoring” the camp amid reports that the tension between the Fatah movement and Islamic militants had reached its climax.

Speaker Nabih Berri said on Monday that the political parties should discuss thoroughly the possibility of adopting the Orthodox proposal regarding the parliamentary electoral law.

“This proposal is the result of the developments locally and in the region and is due to mounting fears (the Christians) have,” Berri’s visitors quoted him as saying.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed late Sunday that he was willing to quit politics if the Lebanese people voted him out.

“If people vote me out I am willing to leave is that fair enough,” he said on Twitter when one follower told him that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s father Hafez left his post for him as Rafik Hariri did.

Fierce clashes erupted on Sunday in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp between Fatah Movement and the Islamist group Jund al-Sham after a bodyguard of Palestinian Armed Struggle chief Mahmoud Issa, aka al-Lino, was shot dead, three days after another bodyguard was assassinated in the same manner.

Three other people were wounded when an unidentified gunman opened fire in the camp, including a Fatah Movement military officer and a child, a Palestinian official in the camp told Agence France Presse.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat reiterated on Sunday that he remains allied with Premier Najib Miqati and said he is keen on seeing Syria united.

During a gathering at the Shouaifat Municipality called for by the head of the Lebanese Democratic Party, Talal Arslan, Jumblat said: “I might have a (different) viewpoint in political affairs and this is legal.”

The leaderships of the Progressive Socialist Party and al-Mustaqbal movement in Iqlim al-Kharroub stressed on Sunday their continued cooperation and the need to preserve calm rhetoric.

“The political status quo and the developments around us create fear and cautiousness … that’s why it is our responsibility to preserve a calm rhetoric, hold onto stability and exert joint efforts to limit political tension to steer the region clear of any agitation,” the leaderships of the two parties said in a statement after holding talks at the PSP’s offices in Daraya.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi lamented on Sunday that the dereliction of the state’s duties and the sectarianism of some politicians are forcing citizens to forget their loyalty to the nation.

“The church is about loyalty to the nation and not the sect,” al-Rahi said in his sermon during the inauguration of the Lady of Assumption church in Bkirki after the end of renovation work.