Hundreds of Palestinians have demonstrated in front of the U.N. relief agency in Beirut, protesting scaled-back services for refugees.

Some of Friday's protesters tried to storm the head office of the U.N. Relief and Work Agency, or UNRWA, but were held back by security forces.

House Speaker Nabih Berri demanded on Friday an immediate recognition by all Arab governments of the Libyan rebel National Council.

He said in a letter to the head of the Arab Inter-parliamentary Union Mohammed bin Mubarak al-Khulaifi: “Immediate calls should be made to all Arab governments for the immediate recognition of the council which represents the popular revolution and the people’s resistance to the barbarism of the Gadhafi regime.”

A senior officer in Israel's Southern Command has said Iran and Hizbullah frequently send experts to the Gaza Strip to train Hamas forces, crossing through illicit tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Some foreign experts are even stationed in Gaza, he said.

A snowstorm that has been lashing Lebanon since Wednesday is expected to subside over the weekend after claiming three victims in the Wadi Khaled region in Akkar.

The National News Agency said Thursday that Abdullah Rayya, Hassan Shmaisi and Walid Rayya, from the Syrian village of Maajir, were carried off by Nahr al-Kabir while riding their tractor on the Syrian side of the border.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati and other officials were mum on Friday on the progress made in the government formation process despite media reports that the cabinet line-up could be announced soon following a deal on the controversial interior ministry portfolio.

Miqati headed to the north to take part in Friday prayers there and meet with personalities in the port city of Tripoli. He returned the same day.

Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja stressed that an article by a Saudi journalist criticizing Caretaker PM Saad Hariri did not express the point of view of the Saudi government.

"We respect the Lebanese and their leaders and pluralism in Lebanon. As for what some journalists and writers deal with in their articles, expresses their own opinions and not that of the state, " Khoja said in a statement.

The Lebanese army intelligence in the south has arrested the leader of a network allegedly spying for Israel and providing it with information on Hizbullah, As Safir daily reported Friday.

The newspaper quoted informed sources as saying that the army was questioning the man identified only with his initials as M.S. over years of collaboration with Israel in the areas of Jezzine and Kfarhouna.

The Gulf Cooperation Council has hoped that Premier-designate Najib Miqati would succeed in forming a new government which satisfies the Lebanese.

In a statement following their meeting in Riyadh on Thursday, the GCC foreign ministers stressed “full support for Lebanese security and national unity.”

The United States should maintain military aid to the Lebanese army even if the government becomes controlled by Hizbullah, U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper said Thursday.

"I would think that to the extent that we can sustain influence and insight and help counterbalance the Hizbullah military wing, that it would be a good idea," Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told U.S. lawmakers.

On the eve of an expected mass rally at the Martyrs Square to commemorate the March 14 anniversary, the March 14 forces endorsed Thursday a political document after a broad meeting at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut, which was attended by the coalition's leaders, MPs, politicians and activists.

"The pro-independence movement had extended its hand to the other camp in a bid to bring everyone under the State's wings, but the other parties, mainly Hizbullah, staged their coup after refusing to acknowledge the end of Syria's tutelage," March 14 forces said in the document, whose clauses were recited by MP Marwan Hamade after the meeting.