Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc on Monday asked President Joseph Aoun to postpone its consultations meeting with him until Tuesday before eventually reversing its decision, the state-run National News Agency and Lebanese and Arab TV networks said.

President Joseph Aoun met Monday at the Baabda Palace with a U.S. military delegation, hours after Israel carried out violent airstrikes deep in south Lebanon and on the country’s border with Syria.

A high-level delegation from the United Arab Emirates is in Beirut to undertake all necessary arrangements to reopen the UAE Embassy in Lebanon, the state news agency of the oil-rich nation said.

Monday’s move came days after Lebanon’s army commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, was elected president ending a 26-month vacuum in the country’s top job.

The Free Patriotic Movement, the Progressive Socialist Party and the predominantly-Sunni National Moderation bloc on Monday voted for former ambassador and current International Court of Justice presiding judge Nawaf Salam for the premier post, effectively making him the country's PM-designate.

MTV earlier reported that Speaker Nabih Berri has tried to pressure the Democratic Gathering to vote for caretaker PM Najib Mikati instead of Salam.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s associates have made it clear in talks with senior Israeli officials that Trump is interested in calm in the Middle East in order to focus on domestic issues, Israel’s Channel 12 has reported.

New Lebanese President Joseph Aoun began parliamentary consultations Monday to designate a prime minister tasked with forming a government desperately needed to tackle major challenges in the crisis-hit country.

Caretaker premier Najib Mikati and Nawaf Salam, a favorite of anti-Hezbollah lawmakers who is the presiding judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, have emerged as the frontrunners.

Israel carried out air strikes in Lebanon Sunday, targeting areas in the east and south according to Lebanese state media, with the Israeli military saying it hit Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.

The airstrikes placed further strain on a fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group, which came into effect on November 27.

UAE leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has congratulated Lebanon's new president, Joseph Aoun, on his election and expressed hopes for reopening the country's embassy in Beirut, state media said.

Syria's new ruler and Lebanon's prime minister have pledged to build lasting ties during the first visit by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the civil war started in 2011.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati's trip came after Islamist-led rebels seized Damascus last month, bringing an end to the rule of Bashar al-Assad.

Six weeks into a ceasefire that halted the war between Israel and Hezbollah, many displaced Lebanese whose homes were destroyed in the fighting want to rebuild — but reconstruction and compensation are slow in coming.

Large swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut's southern suburbs, lie in ruins, tens of thousands of houses reduced to rubble in Israeli airstrikes. The World Bank estimated in a report in November — before the ceasefire later that month — that losses to Lebanon's infrastructure amount to some $3.4 billion.