For weeks, refugee Maryam Janhat has been living in fear of deportation as Lebanon cracks down on Syrians, with politicians ramping up calls for them to be forced home.

Refugees from Lebanon's war-torn neighbor face a dilemma: should they stay and contend with stricter measures and growing anti-Syrian sentiment, or should they return home and risk poverty and repression?

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson hosted a reception on May 23 to celebrate the "strong ties" between the U.S. Embassy and the hundreds of Lebanese who have participated in U.S. Government-sponsored international exchange programs in the United States, the embassy said.

Johnson expressed her admiration for the "remarkable achievements" of U.S. exchange alumni, emphasizing the importance the United States places on the "bridges of friendship and understanding" that alumni continue to build between the United States and Lebanon.

An Israeli drone struck Friday a parked car deep into south Lebanon in the village of Hanaouay in the Tyre District, north-west of Qana.

Hezbollah later announced targeting the surveillance equipment at the Israeli post of Bayyad Blida with the "appropriate weapons," saying it managed to destroy the devices.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel has "surprising plans" for Lebanon.

"We have eliminated hundreds of Hezbollah operatives, and the hand is still bent, even today," Netanyahu said Thursday.

Poverty in Lebanon tripled over the course of a decade during which the small country slid into a protracted financial crisis, the World Bank said Thursday.

The percentage of people in Lebanon living below the poverty line rose from 12% in 2012 to 44% in 2022, the bank said in a report based on surveys conducted in five of the country's eight governorates.

Paris has a serious intention to dispatch its presidential envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian to Lebanon at the end of the current month, several sources have said.

While in Lebanon, Le Drian will meet with the ambassadors of the countries of the five-nation group for Lebanon to discuss the outcome of their meetings with the heads of the Lebanese parties and blocs, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel on Thursday criticized Hezbollah anew over its ongoing conflict with Israel, after several schoolchildren were wounded in an Israeli drone strike that killed a Hezbollah fighter in the Nabatieh region.

“What is the guilt of children going to school in the morning and that of civilians who are paying the price of Israeli criminality that is being drawn by Hezbollah,” Gemayel said in a post on the X platform, formerly Twitter.

Leaders of the Iran-led, so-called "axis of resistance", including Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah's Naim Qassem, discussed the war in Gaza during a meeting in Tehran on the sidelines of president Ebrahim Raisi's funeral, state media reported Thursday.

The "axis of resistance" brings together Iran's regional allies in the fight against Israel, including the Palestinian movement Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and Iraqi Shiite armed groups.

French President Emmanuel Macron has held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that tackled the Lebanese file.

The two leaders emphasized “the need for Lebanon to exit the political crisis and elect a president who would be capable to lead the country on the path of the necessary reforms.”

The French efforts to find a solution for the Israel-Hezbollah border conflict are still ongoing, diplomatic sources in Paris said.

“The Lebanese file was at the heart of the talks that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz held with his French counterpart Stéphane Séjourné,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Thursday.