Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that the FPM has defeated a “conspiracy” aimed at “eliminating” it, after its candidate was elected as the head of the Order of Engineers and Architects.

The ambassadors of the five-nation group for Lebanon met Wednesday Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh in Bnashii and Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel in Bekfaya, as they resumed their efforts to end the presidential impasse in Lebanon.

The quintet's ambassadors had held Tuesday a consultative meeting at the residence of the Egyptian envoy and will meet this week with several parliamentary blocs.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that municipal elections will not happen without including the south where Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging daily cross-border fire.

"Geagea has to understand that I will not separate the south from Lebanon," Berri said in response to Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea who called Tuesday for timely municipal elections, despite the daily clashes in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah on Tuesday fired rockets at Israel's Meron air control base and the Beit Hillel military base in response to Israeli drone strikes that killed two of its military commanders in the southern towns of Ain Baal and Shehabiyeh.

The Israeli army and a source close to Hezbollah confirmed that a military commander was killed in the Ain Baal strike.

The five-nation group for Lebanon will resume its presidential efforts today, Tuesday, following a break necessitated by the Easter and Eid al-Fitr holidays, media reports said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea blamed Tuesday the so-called "Axis of Defiance" and its allies of obstructing anew the municipal elections in Lebanon.

"In addition to dragging us to the depths of hell and obstructing the presidential elections, you are working hard today to deprive the Lebanese of the local authorities as well," Geagea told "the Axis of Defiance and its allies" in a statement he posted on the X platform.

Hezbollah is “willing to accept the election of a candidate other than its declared nominee Suleiman Franjieh,” diplomatic sources said.

The looming threat of a war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is reviving painful memories for former Lebanese militiamen and their families who fled to Israel, their erstwhile ally, more than 20 years ago.

The South Lebanon Army was a mostly Christian militia recruited by Israel when it occupied south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil has sent a letter to the ambassadors of the U.N. Security Council member states, the UNIFIL countries, the members of the five-nation group for Lebanon, the Vatican, the EU ambassador, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker PM Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

A Lebanese minister and two senior officials said preliminary findings suggest Israel's Mossad spy agency was behind the killing of a U.S.-sanctioned Lebanese man accused of sending Iranian money to Hamas.

The body of Mohammad Srour, 57, was found riddled with bullets in a villa in the Lebanese mountain town of Beit Mery last Tuesday.