UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Aroldo Lázaro on Wednesday chaired a Tripartite meeting with senior officers of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israeli army at a U.N. position in Ras al-Naqoura.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil asked Wednesday who has agreed to return more than 100 Syrian nationals from Cyprus to Lebanon.

"While we are doing the impossible to repatriate the Syrian refugees and while we are fighting Europe and the whole world for it, some insolently dare to make a deal with a European country to return refugees to Lebanon," Bassil charged.

A Lebanese Forces lawmaker on Wednesday denied that his party is seeking a return to civil war.

Thirty one opposition MPs said Wednesday, in a joint statement, that it has become clear that "any dialogue with Hezbollah would be futile", a day after Parliament received two questions from the French embassy regarding the required qualifications of the future president.

French special presidential envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian is scheduled to return to Lebanon in September after he had proposed on his last visit to Lebanon to invite all those taking part in the process of electing a president to a meeting in September to achieve a consensus on the challenges and on the priority projects the future president will have to carry out, and consequently the qualities necessary for tackling them.

The drilling rig Transocean Barents arrived Wednesday morning in Block 9 offshore Lebanon and will start operations in the coming weeks to search for gas, caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamiyah said.

French firm TotalEnergies, in agreement with its partners Eni and QatarEnergy, had signed a contract to begin drilling and exploring for gas in late August in waters off crisis-hit Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Monday blamed MTV, without naming it, for the deadly clash in the town of Kahale, as he warned that some political leaders and forces are “pushing the country to explosion and civil war.”

“A known TV station sounded the alarm and incited the people after which a number of young men arrived and some brought weapons,” Nasrallah said in a televised address marking the end of the 2006 war with Israel.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday said that it is “totally out of the question” for Christians to take up arms again, lauding the army’s “performance” in the town of Kahale despite “some reservations.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Monday that the FPM leadership elections will be held on September 10.

Caretaker Inrterior Minister Bassam Mawlawi on Monday announced that there were no “partisan motives” behind the abduction and killing of Lebanese Forces member Elias Hasrouni in the southern town of Ain Ebel.

Hezbollah’s top lawmaker Mohammed Raad has stressed that his party will never be “dragged into strife” in Lebanon, in the wake of the deadly clash involving Hezbollah in the Christian town of Kahale.