Grand Mufti of the Republic Sheikh Abdul Latif Deryan expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia on Monday, condemning what he described as “political extortion” targeting it over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

Deryan expressed his resentment saying SA is being subject for “malicious goals intending to undermine its wise and rational policy led by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.”

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia "in the face of the campaigns targeting it," Hariri’s press office said.

An Israeli reconnaissance airplane has incessantly been hovering over Lebanese areas recently, as the State-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli spy device planted east of the southern town of Hallusieh was remotely destroyed on Sunday by an Israeli drone.

French President Emmanuel Macron asked President Michel Aoun during their meeting in Yerevan to personally intervene to “facilitate” the formation of the new cabinet, a media report said.

“Macron is following up on the government formation file and he asked President Aoun to facilitate the process and press the obstructing parties in order to release the cabinet from captivity,” informed sources told Kuwait's al-Jarida daily in remarks published Sunday.

President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri have agreed to meet next week, presidency sources said.

“The decision whether or not to present a cabinet line-up belongs to the PM-designate,” the sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published Sunday.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh are expected to hold a historic meeting soon that would turn the page on decades of animosity between the two Christian parties.

“Rapprochement between Marada and the LF is a positive factor and there could be a meeting soon between Geagea and Suleiman Franjieh, whose house remains open to everyone, and he welcomes all forces that seek to engage in dialogue with him,” Marada official and ex-MP Karim al-Rassi told al-Joumhouria daily in remarks published Sunday.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri contacted President Michel Aoun on Saturday congratulating him on his safe return from Armenia after his participation in the Francophonie Summit.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea on Saturday said the recent student elections reflect the wide popularity and representation of the Lebanese Forces, as he hinted at Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil saying the “main goal of some is to curtail the LF representation.”

France does not want to be accused of “meddling” in Lebanon’s affairs which made French President Emmanuel Macron refrain from making a statement after his meeting with President Michel Aoun on Friday, amid dark prospects in light of a government deadlock, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

According to information obtained by the daily, it said the meeting between the two men, on the sidelines of the Francophone Summit in Armenia, was “ordinary,” and that Macron has asserted support for Lebanon but was “frank and clear” it could lose grants allocated at the CEDRE conference if the government gridlock persists.

MP Sethrida Geagea of the Lebanese Forces on Friday lashed out at Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil over remarks he voiced in a TV interview overnight Thursday.

Referring to Bassil's remarks on the expected reconciliation between the LF and the Marada Movement, Geagea said the FPM chief “spoke of the issue in the worst and most malicious way possible, in remarks filled with spite, evil and bad intentions towards the two parties.”