The European Union announced Thursday an aid package for Lebanon of 1 billion euros — about $1.06 billion — that will mostly go to boost border control to halt the flow of asylum seekers and migrants from the small, crisis-wracked country across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus and Italy.

The deal comes against a backdrop of increasing hostility toward Syrian refugees in Lebanon and a major surge in irregular migration of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to Cyprus.

A drug and child molestation gang led by a famous Lebanese TikToker has been busted by Lebanese security forces, in a case that has shocked the country.

The well-known TikToker, Georges Moubayed, is a barber whose shop lies in the Metn neighborhood of Sabtyieh near Beirut, media reports said.

France has proposed to Israel and Lebanon that they hold indirect negotiations in Paris in a bid to find a diplomatic settlement for the border conflict, Israel’s Channel 13 said.

According to the report, Paris said it would sponsor the meeting and that Israeli and Lebanese representatives would meet in the French capital in an attempt to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and allow displaced residents on both sides of the border to return to their homes.

U.S. President Joe Biden has been personally involved in intense efforts in recent days to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, U.S. news portal Axios said.

Senior Biden aides said the deal could also pull Israel and Hezbollah back from the brink of war on the Israel-Lebanon border where tensions have been slowly escalating over the past six months, Axios added.

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said "a potential truce in Gaza must be accompanied by a similar truce in Lebanon," as he visited Cairo.

During his visit Wednesday, Sejourne exchanged with Egypt's top diplomat Sameh Shoukry assessments on the ongoing truce negotiations between Hamas and Israel", according to the Egyptian foreign ministry.

Israel's Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military was preparing for an offensive against Hezbollah, as he met troops on Lebanon's border amid ongoing skirmishes.

“You are doing an excellent job of operational defense in the north, and we are preparing for an offensive in the north,” Halevi said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides met Thursday with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati at the Grand Serail.

Army chief Joseph Aoun and Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib also attended the meeting.

For one day, workers ruled the world’s biggest streets.

Workers and activists around the world marked May Day with largely peaceful protests over rising prices, low wages and calls for greater labor rights. Pro- Palestinian sentiments were also on display.

Speaker Nabih Berri met Monday evening with Hezbollah secretary-general's political aide Hussein Khalil and handed him a copy of the French paper suggesting a solution for the Israel-Hezbollah border conflict, MTV said.

The number of Syrian refugees leaving Lebanon is likely to keep rising as donors cut back on aid, the head of the U.N.'s migration agency warned, as pressure builds over their arrival on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration, said that around 3,000 Syrians have left Lebanon since January, compared to 4,500 for the whole of last year. Many of them have headed to Cyprus, about 180 kilometers away.