Hezbollah's leader Sheikh Naim Qassem on Friday said the group has the right to respond to Israel's assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last week.

In a televised speech, Qassem called the killing of Haitham Ali Tabatabai "a blatant aggression and a heinous crime,” adding that Hezbollah has "the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that.”

The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday submitted a complaint to the U.N. Security Council regarding Israel's construction of two concrete walls inside Lebanese territory.

In a statement, the Ministry said that it "submitted, through Lebanon's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, a complaint to the Security Council in response to Israel's new and serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty, adding to its numerous and ongoing violations.”

British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell and Minister of Environment Tamara al-Zein have inaugurated the “King Charles III Cedar Trail”, a new reforestation and eco-tourism initiative in the Shouf Biosphere Reserve.

The event was attended by Noura Jumblat, the mayors and makhateer of Ain Zahalta, Bmahray and Mokhtara, the head of the reserve committee Faisal Abu Ezzeddine, and the reserve's staff.

The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad has said that Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah military chief Haitham Tabatabai and his companions was a “targeting of entire Lebanon -- the state, the army, the resistance and the people.”

“It is their right and duty all to act in a manner that halts the Zionist violation of the country. Coordination and integration impose themselves on everyone and no one can disavow their national duties,” Raad added, in an interview with the al-Modon news portal.

Former Central Bank governor Riad Salameh asserted in an interview with Al-Arabiya Business that he has become a “scapegoat” for the financial crisis that has plagued Lebanon in recent years, denying any connection to depositors' losses or the collapse of the banking sector.

Salameh stated that he is not implicated in any of the legal cases pending in Lebanon, France, or any other European country, noting that the Syrian war cost Lebanon $25-30 billion.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri denied, in remarks published Friday in ad-Diyar newspaper, that Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty warned Lebanon about an imminent escalation as he met with Lebanese leaders in Beirut Thursday.

"No threat was conveyed to us," Berri said, adding that the threats are coming from Israeli media and not from visiting envoys.

The commander of the South Litani sector of the Lebanese Army, Brigadier General Nicolas Tabet, announced Friday that the army does not coordinate with any local party in carrying out its operations within the South Litani region.

During a tour for journalists in the South Litani sector, Tabet emphasized that coordination is exclusively with the Army Command and that there has been "zero objection" from residents to the army's operations in the area.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has warned that “the country is facing significant challenges and dangers.”

“Those who promised the people reform and sovereignty are not implementing anything, and no one believes them, neither domestically nor internationally,” said Bassil during an annual FPM dinner in Beirut.

President Joseph Aoun rejected Thursday Israel's claims that the army is not doing enough to disarm Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

"These claims are baseless," Aoun said, adding that the ceasefire monitoring committee is "documenting what the army has done and is doing daily."

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Thursday that Hezbollah failed to deter Israeli attacks on Lebanon or stop the Israeli war on Gaza.

"Their weapons did not protect their leaders nor the Lebanese people and their properties, and the proof of that is the dozens of levelled villages," Salam said.