Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem on Wednesday made a video message to the wounded of the 2024 Israeli pager attacks, marking the first anniversary of the bloody operation that resembled the opening strike of an all-out war against Hezbollah.

He described the wounded of those attacks at the “pioneers of insight, the key to hope, and the love of eternal life in obedience to God Almighty.”

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack on Wednesday extended gratitude to Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblat over his role in the pacification efforts in Syria’s Sweida, the scene of recent sectarian bloodshed.

“Sincere thanks to Walid Jumblatt for his wisdom and unparalleled stature in harnessing the collective views of valued Druze leaders, who live within various man-made boundaries and borders, but nevertheless are committed to a God that knows no borders or boundaries,” Barrack said in a post on X.

U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus will visit Lebanon on Sunday to “look into the course of the plan that has been devised by the Lebanese Army as an executive mechanism for the government’s decision on monopolizing arms,” prominent sources said.

Ortagus will also take part in a meeting for the ceasefire monitoring committee on Monday, the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper.

Hezbollah’s decision to illuminate Beirut’s iconic Pigeons’ Rock (Rock of Raouche) with pictures of its slain leaders Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine to mark their first assassination anniversary has stirred controversy in the country.

A Hezbollah spokesman said the move would take place from 5pm to 7pm on September 25, accompanied by “sea activities.”

The Finance Ministry said Wednesday afternoon that active and retired servicemen can receive their monthly financial aid as of Thursday, after retired servicemen blocked the Ring, Saifi and Beshara al-Khoury roads in Beirut to protest their living conditions and a delay in the payment of their compensations.

Preparations are underway for Pope Leo XIV to travel to Turkey and Lebanon at the end of November in what would be his first trip abroad, Vatican sources told AFP.

The two-stage trip would likely last just under a week, AFP understands. The Vatican does not normally confirm official visits until closer to the time.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed Tuesday that his government did not create from scratch “the decision to extend the state’s authority across its territory, seeing as this decision had been in place since 1989, or since the Taif Agreement.”

“Today we are working on implementing it and it was underscored in President Joseph Aoun’s inaugural speech and in the Ministerial Statement,” Salam added, in a meeting with a delegation from the Press Syndicate.

Lebanese and foreign efforts are underway to address the file of the Lebanese captives who are being held by Israel, prominent parliamentary sources told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper.

The file had made progress in early 2025 with the release of some captives before the talks ground to a halt.

The Political Advisor to Hezbollah's Secretary General, Hussein Khalil, has accused the government of succumbing to "external dictates" when it took a decision to disarm Hezbollah, which he dubbed, in a radio interview, "a major sin".

Khalil said that the decision was faced with the strength and unity of the Shiite community.

President Joseph Aoun has met, on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Doha, with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the presidency said in a statement.

Aoun and al-Sharaa discussed bilateral relations, security along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the maritime border demarcation and the repatriation of Syrian refugees.