Dr. Firass Abiad, the Manager and CEO of state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital said in a tweet on Friday that Lebanon faces “tough” coming weeks as the country observes a total lockdown due to an uncontrollable spike in cases.

A Cham Wings plane flying from Aleppo in Syria, landed at one o’clock after midnight at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport following the restoration of air connectivity at Aleppo airport, the National News Agency reported Friday.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posted on his Twitter account, a picture of Free Patriotic Movement MP Jebran Bassil bearing the phrase "punished", as part of a series of tweets in which he addressed his country's "support" for the Lebanese people.

Covid-infected caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan is in a good health condition and is practicing his work from his hospital room, the St. Georges Hadath Hospital said on Thursday.

A French judicial team on Thursday questioned Lebanese-French businessman Ziad Takieddine in Beirut in the case of the suspected Libyan financing of ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign.

A full lockdown started in Lebanon Thursday, with residents barred even from grocery shopping and dependent on food deliveries, in a bid to slow a surge in novel coronavirus cases.

The new restrictions were only loosely respected in some areas of the country, however, after mass protests in recent years against a political elite held responsible for a deepening economic crisis.

It was a choice between containing a spiraling virus outbreak and resuscitating a dying economy in a country that has been in steady financial and economic meltdown over the past year. Authorities in Lebanon chose the latter.

Now, virus patients struggling to breathe wait outside hospitals -- hoping for a bed or even a chair to open up. Ordinary people share contact lists of oxygen suppliers on social media as the the critical gas becomes scarce, and the sound of ambulances ferrying the ill echoes through Beirut. Around 500 of Lebanon's 14,000 doctors have left the crisis-ridden country in recent months, according to the Order of Physicians, putting a further strain on existing hospital staff.

Lebanese investigative judge Samaranda Nassar on Thursday issued an indictment in the case of a ship seized carrying ammonium nitrate, hunting rifles, explosives and detonation cables, the National News Agency said.

The Lebanon- and Africa-bound, Togo-flagged ship that sailed from Turkey’s Mersin was intercepted by Greek authorities west of the island of Crete on February 27, 2016, the indictment said. It was owned by Tripoli-based Lebanese nationals Kamal K. and Mohammed A.

Dr. Firass Abiad, the Manager and CEO of state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital, warned Thursday that an 11-day strict lockdown that has been imposed to curb a huge spike in Covid-19 cases “should not fail.”

“In the last 24 hours alone, four Covid positive patients presented in cardiac arrest to our emergency room,” Abiad tweeted.

Lebanon filed a complaint with the Security Council over Israel’s nabbing of a Lebanese shepherd, Hassan Zahra, two days ago in the border area of Kfarshouba, LBCI reported Thursday.