President Michel Suleiman said on Friday that Hizbullah's involvement in battles in Syria weakened it, stressing that any endeavors to extend his tenure don't serve the national interest.

“The March 8 and 14 alliances have erred against me and they have both played with the nerves of the Lebanese people,” Suleiman said in an interview with the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper to be published tomorrow.

The cabinet on Thursday adjourned its discussions until Friday after the parties failed to reach an agreement over the policy statement following a six-hour meeting at the Baabda Palace and intensive consultations inside and outside the session.

Bilateral meetings between ministers were held on the sidelines of the session in a bid to reach a consensual formula for the policy statement and prevent a looming resignation by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

Military Investigative Judge Fadi Sawwan on Thursday interrogated the detainee Jihad H., who is accused of belonging to the jihadist group al-Nusra Front.

The man was charged with “belonging to an armed terrorist group (al-Nusra Front) with the aim of carrying out terrorist acts and providing cars that were supposed to be booby-trapped in Syria, as well as forging official documents and IDs,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Falling rocks and debris from a landslide smashed into a construction site in the Roumieh area on Thursday, leaving one person dead and several others injured.

“Heavy rains led to the collapse of big chunks of a mountain in Roumieh when fell onto an under construction building containing around 20 workers,” MTV said.

A child was killed on Thursday in clashes that erupted in the northern city of Tripoli after the death of a local from injuries he sustained during a shooting in the morning, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Walid Barhoum died after he was shot at three times in the city earlier on Thursday.

Three Grad rockets fired from the Syrian side of the Eastern Mountain Belt landed Thursday in the hills of the Bekaa town of al-Nabi Sheet, state-run National News Agency reported.

The rockets which hit the al-Arid neighborhood did not cause any casualties, NNA said.

The Lebanese Army said on Thursday that security measures undertaken by it reduced the occurrence of suicide attacks in the country and led to the arrest of prominent fugitives.

“The intensified security measure undertaken by the army units across the country reduced significantly the occurrence car bombings,” the army said in a communique issued by the army command.

Visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Thursday that his country was keen on supporting Lebanon to confront the crisis of the Syrian refugees.

“No state has ever confronted what Lebanon is facing,” Niinisto said during a joint conference with his Lebanese counterpart at Baabda Palace.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi held on Thursday telephone conversations with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Tammam Salam on the dispute over the cabinet's policy statement, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said al-Rahi urged both Berri and Salam to exert stronger efforts to find a solution to the policy statement row between the March 8 and March 14 alliances.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc stressed on Thursday that the new government should protect Lebanon from the impact of the Syrian crisis and be able to stage the presidential elections in May.

It said after its weekly meeting: “The policy statement must not ignore the Baabda Declaration.”