The Loyalty to the Resistance bloc praised on Wednesday Speaker Nabih Berri’s “bold national stand” that helped establish a new government.

It said in a statement after a meeting headed by MP Mohammed Raad: “With the formation of a new government, the country has entered a new phase rife with challenges that require different policies that would be able to revitalize all state institutions and fields.”

The March 14 forces vowed on Wednesday to confront alleged attempts by the new Lebanese cabinet to take Lebanon back to the era of Syrian hegemony and integrate the country’s institutions into Hizbullah’s statelet.

The general-secretariat of the coalition said after its weekly meeting that it would prevent Premier Najib Miqati’s government to “return Lebanon to the dark stage that the Cedar Revolution liberated” after ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated on Wednesday that the new government is reminiscent of the period of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, saying that at a time when people are revolting against oppressive regimes, Lebanon has become directly linked to one of them.

He said during a press conference: “The new government has gone against the tide of these revolts, and six years after the Cedar revolution, the cabinet came to remind us of the time of hegemony in the worst possible way.”

Israel’s foreign ministry said Wednesday the Jewish state hopes Lebanon's new government will respect international law and borders and contribute to regional stability.

After five months of negotiations, Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati announced a new government on Tuesday, with Israel’s arch-foe Hizbullah and its allies dominating the line-up.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat have stressed the importance of close cooperation between the different members of the cabinet to guarantee its success.

A statement released by Hizbullah’s press office on Wednesday said that Nasrallah held talks with Jumblat, who was accompanied by Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi, along with the presence of Hizbullah official Wafiq Safa.

Hizbullah began shifting the long- and medium-range rockets it had allegedly stored in northern Lebanon to locations in the center of the country, the Israeli Debkafile website reported.

Western military sources told the website that “Hizbullah was taking the precaution of keeping its arsenal safe from a spillover of violence from Syria.”

A man who identified himself as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army has told Agence France Presse that he had seen “Iranian and Hizbullah snipers” in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.

"I remember well in Damascus, in the Saqba district, I saw people demonstrating” and “with my own eyes I saw snipers positioned on upper floors, Iranian and Hizbullah snipers who fired on the crowd," Hussein Harmoush told AFP, when asked about the presence of Iranian soldiers or Hizbullah warriors fighting alongside the Syrian army, as recently reported by many witnesses.

The Mustaqbal bloc warned the new government on Tuesday against adopting vengeful and spiteful practices, adding that Prime Minister Najib Miqati wasted an opportunity to form a government of independent figures.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “A Cabinet of independent figures would have led the country towards dialogue, instead he chose to serve Hizbullah’s arms, succumbing to its ‘black shirts policy’.”

France said that an initiative aimed at solving the Lebanese crisis is “not rational” especially with the expected release in the upcoming weeks of the indictment in the probe into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination, the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat reported on Monday.

A High-ranking French source told the daily that the time taken by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to issue the indictment paved way for Lebanese officials to “absorb” the results of the accusations.

Two armed parties clashed in Beirut’s Shiyyah neighborhood at dawn Sunday, the state-run National News Agency reported without identifying the gunmen.

It said armed fighters from two parties exchanged fire with automatic rifles in Shiyyah’s al-Tayyar street at around 3:00 am.