Al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Monday the transcript of confessions of the informer in the case of ex-Minister Michel Samaha.

According to the daily the informer headed to the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch in July, saying that he has obtained “very dangerous information he would like to make.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his country would launch a strike against Lebanon if Hizbullah provoked Tel Aviv.

Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Monday that a western diplomat conveyed Netanyahu’s message to the Lebanese government.

Head of the private schools teachers association Nehme Mahfoud reiterated threats on Monday that the Syndicate Coordination Committee will resume the strike if the cabinet failed to implement an agreement on the new salaries scale for the public sector.

Prime Minister Najib “Miqati stressed that the deal is ongoing, but if the cabinet failed to implement it we will hold a meeting and set an agenda to protest against the action,” Mahfoud said in comments to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3).

Prime Minister Najib Miqati said Monday the Lebanese army was taking all measures to restore calm in the northern city of Tripoli which witnessed bloody clashes between rival groups in the past week.

In remarks to An Nahar newspaper, Miqati said Tripoli is heading to stability despite the limited violations taking place.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stressed on Monday that preliminary investigations indicate that the abduction of Kuwaiti national Issam Ibrahim Nasser al-Houti was not “politically motivated.”

“He wasn’t targeted because he is a Kuwaiti citizen,” Miqati told An Nahar newspaper.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel expressed optimism on Monday that the release of one of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria would set the stage for setting free more abductees this week.

In remarks to As Safir daily, he hoped that a new batch of abductees would be released in the coming days.

The army on Sunday arrested 18 gunmen and confiscated quantities of weapons and ammunition in the unrest-hit northern city of Tripoli.

Al-Jadeed television said the army arrested 10 gunmen from al-Mouri family and seized two truckloads of weapons and ammunition from a center belonging to the family in al-Zahriyeh neighborhood.

Maronite monk Elie Jerji al-Maqdessi, 51, was strangled to death with a rope, the National News Agency reported on Sunday, after his body was found Saturday morning on the seaside road in Naameh.

The monk of the Bhersaf Monastery in Northern Metn originally hails from the Bekaa town of Hawsh Hala.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday told his Kuwaiti counterpart Jassem al-Kharafi during a phone conversation that Lebanon is eager to end the abduction of Kuwaiti citizen Issam al-Houti soon, Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA reported.

“All Lebanese security agencies are on the highest state of alert to find the Kuwaiti citizen and guarantee his immediate release,” al-Kharafi quoted Berri as saying.

Hizbullah official Nabil Qaouq stated on Sunday that those banking on the Syrian crisis to weaken the resistance will be disappointed.

He said: “The day in which Lebanon’s resistant identity is changed will never come.”