Syrian refugees will constitute more than a third of Lebanon's population by the end of 2014, the United Nations said Thursday, warning of an increasingly unsustainable burden to the economy.

A report released in Beirut said the number of refugees will be 1.5 million by December, or a third of the country's population of four million.

The cabinet failed on Thursday in resolving the pending disputes linked to granting Lebanese University teachers full-time employment, prompting Education Minister Elias Bou Saab to issue a warning over the fate of the institution and its students.

The minister warned: “The fate of the university and its students will be in danger if this issue is not settled.”

A hand grenade was hurled Thursday near a bakery in the northern city of Tripoli, in the second such attack in two days.

LBCI television said the explosive device targeted a popular Manakish bakery on the Ezzeddine Street.

The army carried out more raids in the northern Akkar region of Fnaideq following similar operations it carried out last week, it announced in a statement on Thursday.

The Army Command said that the military discovered explosives belts and explosives in an agricultural field in the region.

The spiraling refugee crisis from Syria's civil war could pose a serious threat to Lebanon's security and destabilize the entire region unless donors quickly provide the unfunded 70 percent of the $3.74 billion needed for emergency needs, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said Thursday.

The estimate of how much money will be needed is based on an upwardly revised assessment that Guterres plans to formally present on Friday. It includes a new estimate there will be at least 3.6 million Syrian refugees in the region by the end of the year.

Military Examining Magistrate Imad al-Zein demanded on Thursday the death penalty for a Syrian female for the possession of detonators and handing them over to another compatriot, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The NNA said that al-Zein issued his verdict against Syrian national, identified as Samia Sh., for the possession of detonators and delivering them to another, who is yet to be identified.

The lingering electricity crisis is likely to worsen with no solution in the near future as the country is bracing for a summer drought exacerbated by massive influx of Syrian refugees.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Thursday, rationing in Beirut's southern suburbs is daily between 10 and 12 hours while in the South and the Bekaa is between 12 and 14 and reaches around 20 hours in some areas in the North.

Firefighters doused a blaze that ripped through a booth for parliament's guards at Beirut's Nejmeh Square, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

It was not clear what caused the small fire that broke out early in the morning.

Security forces and the army have taken strong measures around the country's largest prison over terrorist networks run by inmates and a plan to escape from the facility, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

The daily quoted security officials as saying that the ISF temporarily prevented the passage of vehicles on the road leading to Roumieh prison after suspects told investigators that terrorists were plotting an attack using a bomb-laden truck and inmates were planning a massive escape.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said on Thursday that the Lebanese state isn't concerned with the Syrian refugee encampments on its territories and rejects their establishment.

“These encampments are illegal and are erected without the approval of the state,” Derbas said in comments published in al-Liwaa newspaper.