Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on Tuesday noted that one state budget is not sufficient to resolve the state's “structural problems.”

“There are structural problems in the state institutions that cannot be resolved in a draft state budget, specifically regarding the role of the public sector,” Khalil said in an interview with the Progressive Socialist Party's al-Anbaa news portal.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil on Tuesday announced that the FPM has reservations over the draft 2019 state budget and over what might happen during its discussion in Parliament.

“We have reservations over a lot of things in the state budget and we have concerns over what might happen in Parliament and during implementation,” Bassil said after the weekly meeting of the Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc.

The Commander of United States Air Force Central Command Lieutenant General Joseph Guastella met with Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces General Joseph Aoun, as well as key leaders in the LAF Air Force, while visiting Hamat Air Base and Beirut Air Base on Monday and Tuesday.

In his meetings, General Guastella discussed "the many challenges faced by the Lebanese Armed Forces Air Force and reaffirmed the U.S. government’s commitment to strengthening the Lebanese-American partnership and its support to the Lebanese Armed Forces in their capacity as the sole, legitimate defender of Lebanon," the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said in a statement.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Lebanon and Israel are close to establishing a framework for negotiations on demarcating the Lebanese-Israeli land and maritime borders.

In a statement, it said the form of negotiations to be held under United Nations auspices and the role of each of the concerned parties is still being worked out. The purported negotiations are to be overseen by Washington, which has been mediating between the two Mideast nations.

Public institutions will close down on the first and second days of Eid al-Fitr, a memo issued by Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Tuesday.

Another naturalization decree is reportedly “looming on the horizon,” the second during the term of President Michel Aoun, although the appeal against the first decree is still pending in the State Shura Council, media reports said on Tuesday.

The new decree, if enacted, would grant Lebanese citizenship to new individuals although the appeal against the previous decree, “secretly” signed by Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and former Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on May 11, 2018, remains subject to the Shura Council decision, added the sources.

An explosion was heard on Tuesday in Wadi al-Numayrieh in southern Lebanon’s Zahrani area, the National News Agency reported.

Israeli forces on Monday hurled smoke grenades at the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila after a protest denouncing damage to a picture of revered Shiite cleric Imam Moussa al-Sadr, the founder of the AMAL Movement.

“As Israeli enemy forces were installing a metal pole on the cement wall separating between Lebanese and occupied Palestinian territory at the Fatima Gate in Kfar Kila, they smashed a picture of Imam Moussa al-Sadr and AMAL Movement martyrs that was hung on the wall, which infuriated AMAL Movement's supporters and the town's residents,” the National News Agency said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday said the draft 2019 state budget which was approved earlier in the day by Cabinet “could've been better.”

“We're happy that the budget has been approved and it is better than the traditional budgets, but it could've been better,” Geagea said during a meeting with a delegation from the Editors Syndicate.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis on Monday welcomed the Lebanese Cabinet’s endorsement of the 2019 draft state budget, hoping that following a “thorough review” by the Parliament it will be adopted “as quickly as possible.”

“The adoption of the 2019 budget creates an opportunity to take initial measures to reduce the deficit. It is also an opportunity to start introducing necessary reforms in a politically-, economically- and socially-sustainable way as a part of the broader effort towards revitalizing good governance, accountability, investment and job creation,” Kubis said in a statement distributed by his office.