Lebanon's highest Sunni Muslim authority on Friday rejected a bill aimed at protecting women against domestic violence and marital rape, saying it would lead to the demise "of the family as in the West."

"Islam is very aware of and concerned with ... resolving problems of poor treatment ... but this should not happen by cloning Western laws that encourage the breakdown of the family and do not suit our society," Dar al-Fatwa said in a statement on its website.

Well-informed military sources have ruled out the possibility that the U.S. might decide to halt military assistance to the Lebanese army following the letter sent by the Congress to President Barack Obama’s administration in this regard in response to the formation of the new Lebanese cabinet, the Central News Agency reported Friday.

“A high-ranking Lebanese military delegation will visit Washington after the government gains (parliament’s) confidence … to provide the necessary clarifications and stress Lebanon’s commitment to the applicable international principles, resolutions and laws,” the agency noted.

Government Commissioner to the Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr on Friday charged seven people with engaging in a deadly gunfight in the northern port city of Tripoli a week earlier.

Saqr Saqr charged the seven suspects with forming armed gangs, exchanging gunfire with unlicensed arms, and killing a soldier and several civilians.

Premier Najib Miqati does not intend to make any suggestion on the clause of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the draft policy statement before holding talks with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, al-Mustaqbal daily reported Friday.

The final decision on the controversial clause is awaiting a meeting between Miqati and Nasrallah, the newspaper said.

The Justice Palace in Baabda was evacuated on Friday after a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax, media reports said.

The National News Agency said that a call was made on Friday morning threatening to blow up the building while Judge Faisal Haidar was holding judicial hearings.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Friday urged President Bashar Assad to “speed up the implementation of reforms,” stressing that the new government will deal with the displaced Syrians from a humanitarian aspect.

Miqati said during an interview with al-Arabiya television network that his government will treat the Syrian refugees “away from any political aspect.”

The March 14-led opposition would launch a National Council whose mission is to follow-up political developments, assess them and take the appropriate stance, a March 14 leader told al-Mustaqbal daily published Friday.

The leader, who refused to be identified, said March 14 officials who met at the Center House on Wednesday agreed on confronting the Hizbullah-led March 8 with all democratic means given that PM Najib Miqati's cabinet was formed due to the presence of illegal arms.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to deliver a televised speech at 8:30 p.m. Friday on the latest developments in Lebanon and the region, Hizbullah’s Media Relations Department announced.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday that the Israeli military exercises along the Lebanese border will constitute a main part of Nasrallah’s speech.

President Michel Suleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun have narrowed their differences and would meet at dinner in Amsheet next month during a ceremony sponsored by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, An Nahar daily reported Friday.

FPM sources denied that the rapprochement was mediated by foreign parties, saying “Suleiman made the initiative to restore relations (with Aoun) after he felt a regress in the capabilities of the March 14 forces.”

The indictment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will be issued before the Lebanese cabinet’s policy statement is announced or prior to the parliament’s vote of confidence, sources told al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday.

“The release of the indictment is just a matter of time, and might take the government by surprise,” the sources said.