Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said on Monday that a tax item that imposes levies on financial institutions is what thwarted the approval of the wage scale in 2014, adding that banking officials have suggested giving the government one billion dollars in return for scrapping the item.

“We have been offered one billion dollars in return for scrapping a tax item that targets Lebanon's banks,” said Khalil in a press interview.

Lebanon's army intelligence staged a security day and carried out several raids in the Bekaa region in east Lebanon including residences of drug kingpin Nouh Zoaiter, VDL (100.5) said on Monday.

The army raided a number of houses that belong to Zoaiter in Hay al-Sharawneh but they did not find him, added VDL.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri received on Sunday evening at the Center House, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea where talks focused on several pivotal issues.

The meeting which lasted two hours and included a working dinner, tackled the parliamentary electoral law, Lebanon's 2017 budget plan, the long-stalled salary scale and the general situation in the country, Hariri's media office said in a statement on Monday.

A meeting between several political parties was held late on Sunday at the Foreign Ministry in Beirut to tackle the thorny parliamentary electoral law in a bid to agree on a new format that meets approval of all political parties before the due date, LBCI said on Monday.

The meeting which was described as “positive” included Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil, representatives from al-Mustaqbal Movement, Hizbullah and AMAL, LBCI said.

Speaker Nabih Berri assured on Monday that approving the wage scale is a rightful people's demand which will eventually be approved, but stressed that efforts must first focus on agreeing an electoral law for the upcoming polls because it is more pressing, An Nahar daily reported.

Israel will continue to “prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizbullah” and "in the next war there will be a clear address: the Lebanese government,” Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot said on Sunday.

"There’s been quiet on the Lebanese border for over a decade. The security situation and peace are common interests to both Israel and Lebanon, but the IDF (Israeli army) will not be deceived by the tranquility," Eisenkot said at a ceremony marking a change in the Northern Command, in remarks published on the English-language website of The Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Thousands of protesters flocked to the Riad al-Solh Square in downtown Beirut on Sunday to voice rejection of the new taxes that the parliament has approved as part of measures aimed at funding the long-stalled new wage scale.

President Michel Aoun will not sign a decree that calls on electoral bodies to hold parliamentary elections on June 18, a media report said.

An animal rights group in Lebanon is caring for three dehydrated, maggot-infested Siberian tiger cubs that were rescued on their way to a zoo in neighboring war-ravaged Syria.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Sunday called on his son Taimur to “carry the heritage” of his grandfather and PSP founder Kamal Jumblat, while stressing the importance of “reconciliation and dialogue.”