Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is continuing his efforts to secure Christian consensus over the presidential file, a media report said on Friday.

The Strong Lebanon bloc said Friday, in a statement, that it will not attend any legislative sessions before the election of a president, asking other blocs who also refused to attend parliamentary sessions to boycott the cabinet sessions as well.

The bloc also condemned the banks' open-ended strike, as he accused the caretaker prime minister and the central bank governor of attending "folkloric" meetings as people face alone dire economic situations.

The UK Director General covering the Middle East Vijay Rangarajan ended a two day visit to Lebanon from 15 to 16 February, with the British Embassy in Beirut and UK Syria Office.

"He saw first-hand the UK’s continued support to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the most vulnerable in Lebanon, including Syrian refugees," a British Embassy statement said.

The Central Security Council held Friday an emergency meeting at the Grand Serail, a day after angry protesters blocked roads across the country and smashed windows and set tires on fire outside banks in Beirut, as the value of the local currency hit a new low.

After the meeting, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked if the activists who burned tires in front of the banks are "real depositors," suggesting that they might have received instructions to do what they did.

The Lebanese woke up terrified on February 6 as a 7.8-magnitude quake centered in Turkey jolted them from beds, shaking buildings for about 40 seconds.

Many residents of Beirut left their homes and took to the streets or drove in their cars away from buildings, terrorized by memories of the 2020 port explosion that wrecked a large swath of the city.

Three soldiers and three fugitives were killed Thursday during a Lebanese Army raid aimed at arresting durg barons in the Bekaa town of Hawrtaala, the army said.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday warned the United States against seeing to stir “chaos” in Lebanon, warning that such an upheaval would spread to the entire region.

Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim on Thursday pressed charges against 22 money changers of whom 18 are in custody.

A magnitude-4.6 earthquake struck the Syrian coast at 1:15 pm Thursday and was felt in Lebanon, the director of Lebanon’s National Center for Geophysics, Marleine Brax, said.

Protestors, on Thursday, blocked roads in Badaro, burned tires and tried to smash the windows of some banks in the area, as banks closed their doors to customers amid an unprecedented economic crisis.

The angry protestors set fire in front of Fransabank and Bank Audi by burning tires. The fire was later extinguished by firefighters of the Beirut Fire Brigade.