Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati chaired Wednesday a meeting to discuss the 2023 state budget.

Deputy PM Saadeh al-Shami, caretaker Minister of Finance Youssef al-Khalil, Mikati's advisors Nicolas Nahhas and Samir al-Daher, and Director General of the Ministry of Finance George Maarawi attended the meeting at the Grand Serail.

The French judiciary has accepted the Lebanese state’s request for freezing the assets and properties of Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and his associates Raja Salameh, Marianne Hoayek and Anna Kozakova, caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury said on Tuesday.

France is willing to propose adding Iran to the five-nation group on Lebanon, which comprises the U.S., France, KSA, Qatar and Egypt, al-Akhbar newspaper reported Tuesday.

The daily said that Paris has evaluated the outcome of its envoy's visit to Lebanon and has launched an action plan in two international and local directions.

The Lebanese Forces’ Strong Republic parliamentary bloc on Tuesday charged that “the dialogue wanted by the defiance camp is only aimed at torpedoing the Taif Accord and the Lebanese constitution.”

The investigations that the army is conducting regarding the killing of the two young men Haitham and Malek Tawk in the northern region of Qornet al-Sawda have so far not managed to “draw a clear picture of the incident’s circumstances,” a media report said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused again those opposing cabinet meetings of "seeking to spread vacuum."

In a statement Tuesday, Mikati said, in an apparent reference to the Free Patriotic Movement, that those who are claiming to preserve the president's powers have themselves practiced obstruction for years.

Israel sent a message to Hezbollah through U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea during the Eid al-Adha holiday, saying that the Israeli army “does not want a war” over two Hezbollah tents that Israel says are placed several kilometers inside the occupied Shebaa Farms, a media report said.

The U.N. peacekeeping force on the Lebanon-Israel border said its commander is in contact with officials in both countries over tensions regarding two tents set up by Hezbollah last month.

Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations in June claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen meters (yards) inside of Israeli territory.

A son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was taken to hospital for the third time after his health deteriorated due to a hunger strike to protest his detention without trial in Beirut, Dubai-based Al-Hadath TV said.

Al-Hadath said Gadhafi was in "critical condition" after he suffered a sharp drop in his blood sugar level. He was taken to Beirut’s Hotel-Dieu de France hospital on Sunday.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has met in London with the British deputy national security adviser for Middle East affairs, Ajay Sharma, and the Middle East official at the British premiership, George Bowman.