The army arrested on Monday four individuals, including three Syrians, in the Bekaa region for driving a vehicle without its proper legal papers, reported the National News Agency.

They were handed over to a police station in the Ras Baalbek region where it was discovered that the Syrians had illegally entered Lebanon.

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji returned on Monday from a visit to Saudi Arabia that tackled the kingdom's military grant to Lebanon.

He said of the recent developments in Lebanon: “The strange incidents are a passing phase that we will overcome.”

“No comment!”, that was the only stance voiced Monday by Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat in his weekly editorial in al-Anbaa newspaper – the PSP's mouthpiece.

Jumblat's “no comment” was emailed to media outlets by the PSP's media department.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon resumed on Monday hearing the testimony of witnesses in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's Feb. 2005 assassination in a massive bombing that targeted his convoy in Beirut.

A retired member of the Internal Security Forces, Abdul Badih al-Soussi, testified via video conference from Beirut.

An alleged suspect of the suicide bombing that targeted Hermel over the weekend denied media reports that accused him, considering it a “joke.”

“I have no links to the bombing in Hermel. It was a joke by a guy and without my prior knowledge,” he told LBCI.

Traffic came to a standstill at Beirut's entrances and several other areas during the Monday morning rush-hour after the owners of trucks held a strike to protest the strict schedule imposed on them.

The head of the syndicate of owners and drivers of trucks, Shafiq al-Qassis, said that the strike is peaceful and only aims at changing the schedule of the trucks.

The death toll from a suicide bombing that targeted the northeastern town of Hermel on January 16 has risen to four, the state-run National News Agency reported on Monday.

According to the news agency, Mohammed Issa, who was critically injured in the bombing, succumbed to his wounds early on Monday.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will not accept the formation of a government from which the two major Christian parties are missing, officials in Bkirki said.

The officials, who were not identified, told al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Monday, that “no one should ever think that the Maronite patriarch would give his consent to a cabinet from which the biggest Christian parties are missing.”

Two houses were badly damaged Sunday by shells fired from Syria on the Akkar town of al-Uwaynat as Syrian warplanes reportedly violated the Lebanese airspace over several towns in the region.

“Shells fired from the Syrian side of the border have been targeting the border town of al-Uwaynat since the afternoon,” Lebanon's National News Agency reported in the evening.

The army on Sunday took strict security measures at its checkpoint in Dahr al-Baydar, especially on the lane leading to Beirut, over reports about a bomb-laden car, state-run National News Agency reported.

The measures “created a traffic jam in the vicinity of the checkpoint, which reached as far as al-Mreijat,” NNA said.