Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said on Thursday that a large number of security members were transferred from the northern city of Tripoli to the eastern Bekaa valley as the implementation of the security plan reached the zero hour.

“We have transferred hundreds of Internal Security Forces' members and officers to the Bekaa ahead of the enforcement of the security plan in the area,” Mashnouq said in remarks published in An Nahar newspaper.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has ruled out the election of a president from either the March 8 or 14 alliance, saying the head of state should be consensual and avoid a political crisis in the country.

In remarks carried by local newspapers on Thursday, al-Rahi said: “I don't think a president from either March 8 or 14 would be elected because he should be consensual and accepted by the people so that he could bring the bickering parties closer.”

The army clashed with a number of gunmen on Wednesday evening as it carried out raids in the Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, after arresting three people and raiding an arms and explosives depot during the day.

“Clashes erupted between the army and gunmen in Bab al-Tabbaneh amid raids in Khan al-Askar," OTV reported.

The army arrested on Wednesday evening “one of the most dangerous fugitives,” along with seven others, in the northeastern town of Arsal.

"The army detained eight Syrian nationals in Arsal, including one of the most dangerous and infamous fugitives,” LBCI television reported.

An unknown gunman on Wednesday tried to assassinate the top official of the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects -- also known as al-Ahbash -- in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

After several TV stations said Sheikh Orsan Suleiman died of his wounds after he was shot in Ain el-Hilweh, the hospital that he was rushed to denied the reports, saying he was alive but in a "very critical condition."

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday suggested several sources that can be used to finance the stalled new wage scale, revealing that the PSP will soon make an "initiative" toward the Syndicate Coordination Committee, which has been championing the demands.

“I propose a series of ideas that perhaps can contribute to finding serious and real solutions and putting an end to the political and populist overbidding and to attempts to persuade the working class with delusional exits despite its rightful and legitimate demands,” said Jumblat in a statement.

Kataeb bloc MP Sami Gemayel called on Wednesday for voting on a new electoral law before electing a news president, considering also that the solution to funding the new wage scale lies in privatizing the electricity sector.

"There is an issue that we have to deal with as MPs, and which has been ignored by everyone,” Gemayel remarked at a press conference.

Lebanese University contract professors on Wednesday announced that they will stage a two-day strike next week, warning of an open-ended strike if authorities do not appoint them as full-time employees.

“We have decided to stage a strike on Wednesday and Thursday next week and an open-ended strike will be held if our demands are not fulfilled,” the professors said during a sit-in at the intersection of the presidential palace in Baabda.

Internal Security Forces succeeded on Wednesday in arresting the criminal behind the 2013 murder of a Lebanese national residing in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan.

They announced the arrest of the prime suspect in the murder Samir Zeidan in March 2013.

The parliament approved Wednesday a draft-law on the employment of Civil Defense volunteers, who held a protest as part of a “day of revolt” held by the Syndicate Coordination Committee, as the joint parliamentary committees failed to finalize all the points of the new wage scale bill.

The committees decided to adjourn the session to 3:00 p.m. Thursday.