The army announced Wednesday the arrest of an Amal Movement supporter who had opened fire Saturday from a handgun during a violent protest against a rival electoral rally in the southern city of Sarafand.

“A patrol from the Intelligence Patrol has arrested in the Sidon town of Sarafand the citizen A. Kh. for opening fire in the air in the aforementioned town during a protest by a number of the town’s residents against the announcement of an electoral list,” an army statement said.

Child vaccination rates in Lebanon have dropped by more than 30 percent, compounding a health crisis marked by drug shortages and an exodus of trained professionals, the United Nations said Wednesday.

"The critical drop in vaccination rates has left children vulnerable to potentially deadly diseases such as measles, diphtheria and pneumonia," the UN children's agency UNICEF said in a new report titled "A worsening health crisis for children".

President Michel Aoun expressed Wednesday his support for Palestinians and Jerusalemites, after a weekend of violence in Jerusalem.

"The systematic attacks of the Israeli occupation forces on al-Aqsa Mosque will not change the identity of the Holy City," Aoun said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday announced that the LF will call on parliament to withdraw confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib over accusations related to the distribution of polling stations abroad.

“We will call for withdrawing confidence from the foreign minister based on what he is doing in the expat voting file,” Geagea said.

A session on capital control was adjourned Wednesday, as the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement's MPs refused to discuss the draft law.

Depositors and activists had rallied since morning outside Parliament to prevent MPs from attending the session held by the joint parliamentary committees, as they considered that the law will deprive depositors from their rights.

Depositors and activists rallied Wednesday outside Parliament to prevent MPs from attending a session on capital control held by the joint parliamentary committees.

Some protestors kicked the car of Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli and threw stones at it, media reports said.

Lebanon is close to reaching an agreement with the World Bank in which the international agency would give the crisis-hit country a $150 million loan for food security and to stabilize bread prices for the next six months, the economy minister has said.

Amin Salam said talks with the International Monetary Fund were progressing in a positive way.

The motive behind the killing of the pharmacist Layla Rizk in her drugstore in Mrouj on Monday was not theft, Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi said on Tuesday.

CCTV “cameras have led to some threads,” Mawlawi added from Bkirki, noting that “the criminal will soon be brought to justice.”

The Syrian embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday denied interfering in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, stressing its “respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty.”

“Some sides are continuing to promote claims about ‘political and security interferences by the Syrian embassy’ in the anticipated Lebanese parliamentary juncture,” the embassy said in a statement, describing the allegations as “attempts to reverse facts and fabricate enemies.”

Hizbullah took part in behind-the-scenes political contacts over the past few hours in a bid to contain the repercussions of President Michel Aoun’s remarks from Bkirki, in which he accused the Shiite Duo of obstructing the probe into the Beirut port blast, a media report said.

Aoun’s remarks came after Finance Minister Youssef Khalil, who is close to Speaker Nabih Berri, refused to sign the appointments of the heads of the Court of Cassation, which is looking into recusal lawsuits against the judge leading the investigations into the port blast case, Tarek Bitar.