President Michel Aoun on Monday held phone talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II to inquire about the reasons behind the closure of Jordan’s Nassib border crossing in the face of Lebanese agricultural goods, the National News Agency said.

“He asked him to intervene to open the crossing to 60 trucks carrying dozens of tons of fresh Lebanese vegetables and fruits,” NNA added.

President Michel Aoun on Monday held talks with caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni over a contract with a foreign firm aimed at carrying out a forensic audit of the accounts of the central bank.

“The meeting was dedicated to discussing the issue of the contract with the Alvarez & Marsal firm that will carry out a forensic audit of the accounts of Banque du Liban, in order to clarify some ambiguities that occurred after the signing of the contract,” the National News Agency said.

Lead judicial investigator into the Beirut port blast Judge Fadi Sawwan on Monday heard the testimonies of four witnesses and will question more witnesses on Tuesday, the National News Agency said.

Sawwan also dismissed motions for the release of three detainees in the case, remanding them in custody.

Director of Media Focal Center, Salem Zahran, filed a complaint on Monday with the Public Prosecution Office to investigate the “waste of public funds" in the Ministry of Economy and Trade specifically in subsidized food commodities.

Israeli troops carried out maintenance work using a bobcat bulldozer in the occupied territories off Lebanon’s Marjayoun plains, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

Italian PM Giuseppe Conte is expected to kick off a two-day visit to Beirut on Tuesday for talks with senior Lebanese officials, and to inspect the UNIFIL’s Italian battalion and the blast site in Beirut’s port, media reports said on Monday.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday lashed out at the 2006 memorandum of understanding between Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, which was signed at the Mar Mikhail Church in Shiyyah.

“There is a magical word which summarizes the reasons behind everything we have reached, which is the Mar Mikhail understanding,” said Geagea in a speech in Maarab that followed an annual mass commemorating the LF fighters who fell during civil war.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called on Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib to form a “small emergency government.”

Addressing Adib by his title, al-Rahi added that the new government should be “competent and strong” and should inspire “seriousness, ability and hope.”

Leaders of Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas movement, both enemies of Israel, have met in Lebanon to discuss diplomatic normalization between Israel and Arab countries, Hizbullah said Sunday.

They stressed the "the firmness of the axis of resistance in the face of all pressures and threats," a Hizbullah statement said, without revealing where or when the meeting took place.

Rescue teams kept up their search for survivors in Beirut Saturday even as hopes raised by sensor readings of a pulse beneath the rubble of last month's blast began to fade.