President Joseph Aoun held a meeting Thursday with MP Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc.

The Lebanese government will likely approve Tuesday the article on monopolizing arms in the state’s hands, sources told Sky News Arabia on Friday.

In a ceremony that honored the courage and sacrifice of healthcare professionals working in conflict zones, the American University of Beirut (AUB) inaugurated the Abu Sittah-Gilbert Humanitarian Award. Established in 2024, this award recognizes health workers and first responders who risk their lives and livelihoods to protect and care for people facing war, siege, and occupation.

The event, which was hosted by the Palestine Land Studies Center at AUB, opened with a minute of silence in respect for all victims of wars and conflicts, followed by a performance by soprano and educator Ghada Ghanem, who recited short poems by Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha and sang ‘If I Must Die,’ by the late Refaat Alareer. Ghanem is a faculty member at AUB and collaborates with the Edward Said Conservatory to bring music to children in Gaza.

The UN refugee agency's representative in Lebanon said Thursday he hopes that at least 200,000 Syrian refugees return from Lebanon by the end of the year under a new government-backed return plan.

Before former President Bashar Assad was ousted in a lightning insurgent offensive in December, only about 1% of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon said they were planning to return, UNHCR's outgoing Lebanon Representative Ivo Freijsen said.

A series of Israeli air strikes killed four people in south and east Lebanon, the health ministry said Friday, offering a toll for attacks that took place the day before.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had targeted Hezbollah "infrastructure that was used for producing and storing strategic weapons", including what the country's defense minister described as the group's "biggest precision missile manufacturing site".

Israeli warplanes on Thursday bombed areas in northeastern and southern Lebanon, a day after a defiant speech by Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem.

President Joseph Aoun met Thursday in Baabda with U.S. Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla, who was accompanied by a U.S. military delegation and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson.

The threats against Lebanon due to failing to hand over Hezbollah’s arms will not be limited to military action, Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying Thursday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday hailed the Lebanese Army on the 80th anniversary of its founding.

“Eighty years have passed since the creation of this unifying national institution and it still baptizing our holidays with loyalty, safeguarding sovereignty through great sacrifices, and protecting unity with the honor of belonging," Berri said in a statement.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said there will be no turning back on the state's decision to be the sole bearer of arms, as pressure increases from Washington and domestically to disarm Hezbollah.

In an interview, published Thursday in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Salam said that it is natural for the state's monopoly on arms to be discussed in the next cabinet session, in implementation of the Taif Agreement and the ceasefire agreement reached in late November with Israel. He said U.S. envoy Tom Barrack's paper provided practical ideas for this.