Newly-appointed Army Commander General Joseph Aoun will soon make an official visit to Washington, the first since assuming his post in March, a media report said on Wednesday.

Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that the upcoming legislative session will be held on May 15, noting that the political forces have been given a chance to agree on a new electoral law and avoid “vacuum.”

An army patrol came under gunfire Tuesday in the Baalbek district town of Dar al-Wasaa, state-run National News Agency reported.

An explosion rocked an area on the peripheries of the eastern border town of Arsal on Tuesday, state-run National News Agency reported.

The Internal Security Forces on Tuesday announced the arrest of two Lebanese men who had formed a cell linked to the terrorist Islamic State group.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday rejected the proposed re-endorsement of the 1960 electoral law, describing it as a veiled extension of parliament's term, as he accused some political parties of having a “two-faced rhetoric” on the electoral law.

The bodies of five Christian Syrians discovered in the outskirts of the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal were handed over Tuesday to Damascus, General Security said.

President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday the Lebanese must adhere to their right to choose their representatives at the parliament, otherwise Lebanon would become a “totalitarian regime,” the National News Agency reported.

“We will be in a totalitarian regime shall the Lebanese relinquish their right in electing lawmakers at the parliament,” said Aoun, addressing a delegation from the Administrative Decentralization Committee led by Lawyer Antonio al-Hashem.

The National Social Security Fund employees held a sit-in on Tuesday in Riad al-Solh Square in Beirut, protesting two articles in the recently approved state budget which they say destabilizes the monetary resources of the institution.

The workers protest was held under the title of “Protecting the NSSF” and coincided with a meeting of the Parliamentary Budget and Finance Committee.

An extended four-party meeting held at the Center House Sunday evening failed to record a breakthrough agreement on a new electoral law for Lebanon's parliamentary polls, as Hizbullah party “mourned” a law format suggested by the Progressive Socialist Party, media reports said on Tuesday.

“The meeting was held in the presence of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Hizbullah secretary-general's political aide Hussein Khalil and Hariri's chief of staff Nader Hariri,” al-Joumhouria daily reported.