The Lebanese Army on Sunday said it intercepted a small boat carrying 11 people, mostly Syrians, attempting an illegal sea crossing out of the crisis-hit country.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri said after meeting Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan on Saturday, and after attending the meeting of the Higher Islamic Council, that he is keeping an eye on the country as it grapples with economic and social crises.

A five-day live fire exercise between UNIFIL peacekeepers and Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) personnel concluded in an open field south of UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura, a press release said on Friday.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri visited Grand Mufti of the Republic Abdul Latif Daryan at Dar el-Fatwa on Saturday, amid reports that he plans to announce his resignation after the meeting.

After high hopes that the initiative of Speaker Nabih Berri could make a breakthrough in a deadlocked government formation, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper said on Saturday that the difficult counter conditions set by political parties are Likely to thwart any hope in that direction.

Quoting sources close to Berri, the daily said his initiative reached a “deadlock” and needs a “miracle to make any positive breach."

Pharmacies across Lebanon shuttered their doors on Friday to protest severe shortages of medicines as motorists lined up for hours outside gas stations since the crack of dawn.

The two-day strike called by pharmacists over lack of supplies, including infant milk, as well as gasoline shortages were the latest signs of Lebanon's economic and financial meltdown, which appears to be spinning out of control while the country's leaders seem unable, or unwilling, to rein in the crises.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday criticized the caretaker government, accusing it of standing idly by in the face of the growing economic and financial crises, as he described Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s call for buying fuel from Iran as unrealistic.

“Is the caretaker government taking care of matters? I see that it is draining the Lebanese people,” Geagea said at a press conference.

Hospitals in Lebanon warned Thursday they may be forced to suspend kidney dialysis next week due to severe shortages in supplies, the latest in Lebanon's accelerating crises and collapsing health sector.

Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented economic and financial crisis that has seen the local currency collapse and banks clamp down on withdrawals and money transfers. As the Central Bank's foreign currency reserves dry up, the country has been witnessing shortages in medicines, fuel and other basic goods, with long lines forming outside petrol stations.

Center House sources have poured cold water on a flurry of reports suggesting that there are “positivities” in the cabinet formation negotiations.

“If there were so-called positivities, they would have appeared. Show us where these positivities are so that we capitalize on them,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Thursday.

Doctors around Lebanon on Thursday staged sit-ins outside hospitals protesting the dire conditions and sharp shortages in medical supplies, and called on the World Health Organization to step in and help the crisis-stricken country.