Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said that “Hezbollah must become a normal political party without an armed wing.”

“There will be no backing down from the state’s monopolization of military force,” Salam added, in an interview with French magazine Paris Match.

Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir on Tuesday made an inspection visit to an ongoing Israeli military exercise near Lebanon’s border.

"Alongside continuing operational activity, thwarting threats and maintaining a high level of preparedness and readiness, you must return to training to improve efficiency and preparedness for war on all fronts," Zamir told commanders.

The file of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel is expected to be activated upon the arrival in Beirut of Michel Issa, the new U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, a media report said.

Issa, who will arrive in Beirut in early November, will meet with Lebanese officials and accurately relay his administration’s stance on the Lebanese file, sources told al-Binaa newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

Lebanese pop star Fadel Shaker who turned himself in this month after 12 years on the run appeared in court Tuesday in Beirut for the first time.

Fadel Shaker had been hiding out in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh since bloody street clashes erupted between Sunni Muslim militants and the Lebanese army in June 2013 in the coastal city of Sidon.

One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a motorbike in Ain Qana in Iqlim Al-Tuffah on Wednesday.

The Israeli army claimed that the man killed, Issa Karbala, was a unit commander with Hezbollah's al-Radwan force and had been "involved in moving weapons inside Lebanon" and "advancing terrorist plots against Israel."

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on Tuesday called on U.S. envoy Tom Barrack to stop what he called his "threats" against Lebanon.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has discussed in a phone call with U.S. Envoy Tom Barrack the need to support the Lebanese Army to implement its disarmament plan, a French diplomat said.

The diplomat told An-Nahar newspaper, in remarks published Tuesday, that Barrot and Barrack also discussed France's commitment to hold an international conference in Riyadh in November to support the Lebanese Army.

Despite the setback of Israel’s rejection of a U.S. proposal for indirect negotiations with Lebanon, “contacts have not stopped, both domestically and externally,” Lebanese official sources said.

After President Joseph Aoun’s initiative for indirect negotiations with Israel made tangible progress and discussions reached the extent of forming the negotiating team and the political representative level, the president is still mulling his steps very carefully, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan said Tuesday his party is keen on holding the parliamentary elections on time, urging the government and parliament to vote on an amendment to the law that would allow expats to vote for all 128 seats.

Hezbollah and Amal argue that they do not enjoy the same campaigning freedom that other parties enjoy abroad and are objecting the amendment of the current law, which only allows expats to vote for six newly-introduced seats in parliament.