Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri linked Friday the Israeli escalation in south Lebanon to the push for normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab world, days after U.S. President Donald Trump said Syria's president backed normalization with Israel in the future.

Trump had said after meeting the Syrian interim President that Ahmad al-Sharaa backed normalization with Israel in the future but "they have a lot of work to do". The meeting took place in Riyadh on Wednesday, a day after Trump announced he was lifting sanctions on the war-battered country.

The army on Friday announced that it has so far arrested 86 people who were involved in firing weapons in the air in connection with the municipal and mayoral elections, while also seizing arms and ammunition.

U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus will return to Lebanon in around a week, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Friday.

The United States has sanctioned “a network of senior Hezbollah officials and financial facilitators,” the U.S. State Department said.

A clash erupted Friday morning between a UNIFIL patrol and residents of the southern town of al-Jmeijmeh in the Bint Jbeil district.

An Israeli drone strike on Thursday targeted a bulldozer near a factory between the southern towns of Yohmor al-Shaqif and Arnoun, causing one casualty, the National News Agency said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday pointed out that U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia and the political steps decided “prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the right path leading to a Palestinian state."

Lebanon’s central Roumieh Prison has witnessed rioting on Wednesday and Thursday coinciding with a legislative session in parliament.

Parliament on Thursday approved an urgent draft law doubling the penalty of illegal shooting into the air, which was proposed by MP Ashraf Baydoun.

Israeli drones on Thursday dropped percussion bombs on the destroyed school in the southern town of al-Dhayra and on a home in the southern border town of Kfar Kila.