Judicial and security authorities in Lebanon are investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of former Iraqi MP Ahmed al-Alwani inside a residential apartment in Beirut, amid information that has so far ruled out financial motives or robbery behind the crime.

While a Lebanese suspect is in custody, preliminary information indicates that two other suspected accomplices fled to Syria just a few hours after carrying out the murder, though their full identities and nationalities have not yet been confirmed, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported.

The investigation into the five “Hezbollah members” who were arrested between the northern districts of Batroun and Bsharri is still in the intelligence-gathering phase and is expanding, focusing on the reasons for their movement in the area, judicial sources said.

President Joseph Aoun discussed Thursday Lebanese-Turkish relations with Bilal Erdogan, son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Baabda.

"Lebanon looks forward to a new phase of cooperation and partnership, particularly in the fields of investment, reconstruction, trade, tourism, and infrastructure," Aoun told Erdogan, as he praised "the role that Turkey can play in supporting the stability of Lebanon."

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri affirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty on Thursday after Kataeb Party leader and MP Samy Gemayel urged him to respond to recent statements by Iran's parliament speaker, who said Iran and Lebanon are a unified front in peace and war.

During Thursday's parliamentary session, Gemayel raised the remarks made by the Iranian parliamentary speaker and called on Berri to publicly reject them, urging him to declare that Lebanon is independent and that no external party can drag the country into war.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Thursday at the U.N. climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, that Lebanon's climate challenges are inextricably linked to its ongoing geopolitical and economic struggles, citing the environmental impacts of the Israeli war on south Lebanon.

Salam said years of financial crisis have weakened Lebanon's institutions and public facilities, while successive wars have caused widespread destruction affecting infrastructure, agricultural lands, forests, and ecosystems.

For more than a century, the Tabbara family has been serving up falafel to Beirut's residents.

Their business, which predates Lebanon's founding, has survived two world wars and a series of local conflicts in the small Mediterranean nation.

Iraq will send a delegation to Lebanon to support the probe into the killing of a former lawmaker in Beirut, a security official told AFP on Wednesday.

Former Sunni Iraqi politician Ahmed al-Alwani was found strangled to death in a Beirut apartment on Monday night.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem hailed on Wednesday President Donald Trump's recent midterm defeat, describing it as "an opportunity" for his Iran-backed Lebanese movement and other opponents of the U.S. in the region.

Trump's Republican Party suffered massive losses in last week's elections, in which the Democrats seized control of Congress.

More than one million people in Lebanon face acute food insecurity, the United Nations warned on Wednesday, following years of war and economic crisis.

Lebanon has endured two successive wars with neighboring Israel since 2023 and remains mired in an unprecedented economic collapse triggered seven years ago.

President Joseph Aoun said Wednesday that no one can claim sovereignty or pretend to love their country while attacking the army and security forces tasked with safeguarding security, stability, and state authority.

The remarks come after Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and some lawmakers criticized army chief Rodolphe Haykal.