President Michel Aoun on Thursday called on Washington to press Israel to stop its "continued violations against Lebanon's territorial, maritime and aerial sovereignty," during talks in Baabda with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Aoun also told Tillerson that the U.S. should urge Israel to "commit to the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701."

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Lebanon Thursday where he held talks with senior Lebanese officials.

Tillerson's visit, part of a tour of the Middle East, comes at a time of tension between Lebanon and neighboring Israel, notably over the role of Hizbullah and Israel's encroachment on the country’s land and maritime border.

Poland's prime minister has visited a school and clinic for Syrian refugees in northern Lebanon, reiterating his country's position that aiding those uprooted by the war should take place closer to their home.

In a statement Tuesday, Mateusz Morawiecki's office said he has declared $10 million to help Lebanon build housing for 1,000 refugees from Syria. Morawiecki said aid to refugees close to the countries they want to return to is the most efficient form of aid.

The Trump administration, increasingly concerned that the 74-strong coalition it cobbled together to destroy the Islamic State group is losing sight of the prime objective, is pressing its partners to refocus efforts, overcome rivalries and concentrate on the task at hand: the eradication from Iraq and Syria of the extremist group.

The alarm U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to sound at a coalition gathering in Kuwait on Tuesday comes with the fight at a critical moment and the mission shifting from offensive military operations to stabilization. Distractions are adding up, such as Turkey's fighting with U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in Syria and renewed spillover from Syria's civil war. Meanwhile, hostilities between noncoalition actors — Iran, its proxies in Syria, and Israel — risk creating a new conflict in an already crowded battlespace.

The US Congress passed a crucial federal spending bill Friday after hours of delay, sending the measure to President Donald Trump to end the nation's second government shutdown in three weeks.

The House voted 240 to 186 in support of a bipartisan package that extends government funding until March 23 and lifts federal spending limits by nearly $300 billion over the next two years, after the Senate cleared the measure in the middle of the night.

A Lebanese investigative judge on Thursday demanded the death penalty for a suspected killer of a British woman whose body was found near Beirut two months ago.

Lebanese officials said Judge Hanna Breidi issued an indictment Thursday demanding the maximum penalty for Tarek Houshi, 29, accusing him of raping Rebecca Dykes before strangling her with a rope.

Diplomatic contacts are underway between Beirut and "friendly countries" to ease tensions with Israel over a cement wall it is building along the border which Lebanon says would encroach on its territory, the government said Thursday.

Acting information minister and Social Affairs Minister Pierre Bou Assi told reporters after a government meeting that top Lebanese officials are in contact with the United Nations and some countries that he did not name to try and decrease tensions that have escalated over the construction of the wall.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Michael Beary on Thursday inspected the Blue Line area, south of al-Naqoura, where Israel has started to build a controversial separation border wall that Lebanon says would encroach on its territory.

Israel has started constructing the wall along its border with Lebanon on Wednesday. Lebanon's Higher Defense Council met afterward and instructed the Lebanese Armed Forces to confront any Israeli territorial or maritime border violations.

Jurors convicted an Oklahoma man of murder and hate crime charges Wednesday for fatally shooting his Lebanese neighbor after bombarding him with racial and anti-Muslim insults in a long-running feud with his family, who are Christian.

Stanley Vernon Majors, 63, was found guilty in the August 2016 shooting death of Khalid Jabara, 37, outside his Tulsa home. Majors also was convicted of threatening an act of violence. Jurors deliberated for nearly 2 ½ hours before returning the verdict.

Israel on Wednesday started constructing a controversial wall along its border with Lebanon, a barrier that Lebanon says would encroach on its territory.

Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL, confirmed the beginning of works in the Naqoura area and said the force is "fully engaged with both parties in order to find common solutions."