A meeting was recently held between Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and some U.S. officials concerned with the south Lebanon file, who were led by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and a number of U.S. experts and security officials involved in the work of the Mechanism committee, a ministerial source said.

The Lebanese Army found “an entrance to a small room containing no arms or equipment” in the southern town of Touline on Wednesday, following a request from the Mechanism ceasefire committee, which “conveyed an Israeli claim about the presence of a tunnel,” the al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

Al-Jadeed television said the site had been previously targeted by an Israeli airstrike.

Hezbollah’s Arab and international relations official, Ammar al-Moussawi, has been carrying out a secret visit to Saudi Arabia for the past three days, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met Wednesday at the Baabda Palace with President Joseph Aoun.

“We discussed the parliamentary (elections) juncture and the current hurdles that are in its way, seeing as bickering and provocation cannot lead to parliamentary elections,” Bou Saab said after the meeting.

Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar headed to Bulgaria on Wednesday to question a shipowner wanted in connection with the catastrophic 2020 Beirut port blast, a judicial official told AFP.

The long-awaited questioning comes after a court this month refused Lebanon's request to extradite Igor Grechushkin, a 48-year-old Russian-Cypriot who was arrested in September at Sofia airport.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea on Wednesday called on all MPs to boycott Thursday’s legislative session, while accusing Speaker Nabih Berri of “blackmailing the North’s MPs over the Qoleiat airport clause.”

Geagea also urged voters “who want expats to vote for the 128 seats at their places of residence abroad to pressure the MPs whom they voted for to boycott the session.”

Two Hezbollah members were killed Tuesday in two Israeli drone strikes in south Lebanon and the Chouf district, the Israeli army said.

In the Chouf district town of Sibline, near Sidon, around 40 kilometers from the nearest border with Israel, a pickup truck was targeted, resulting in the death of one person and the wounding of several others, Lebanese media reports said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. envoy Tom Barack discussed in their meeting on Monday a framework to “continue civil dialogue with Lebanon, with expectations that it will soon expand to additional areas,” diplomatic sources told the Israel Hayom newspaper.

Two weeks ago, a first meeting took place between Israeli and Lebanese civilian representatives, laying the groundwork for ongoing talks concerning both “preventing Hezbollah's re-armament and issues related to the border line and IDF (Israeli army) activity in Lebanese territory,” Israel Hayom said.

Despite the alarming reports published in the Israeli press, senior Lebanese officials do not seem to be worried, with “credible sources” telling al-Joumhouria newspaper that Lebanon is receiving many foreign signals that are downplaying the possibility of an Israeli strike.

Quoting a Western diplomat, the sources told the daily that “the Americans in specific do not want the situation in the Lebanon to slide into an escalation, at least in the current period.”

A senior Lebanese official has announced that Lebanon is “willing to reach a security agreement with Israel that would be based on the Lebanese principles on which the president, the speaker and the premier agree.”