A decree was issued on Friday to form the supervisory body that will oversee the 2018 parliamentary elections following its formation during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, the National News Agency reported.

Decree number 1385 bore the signatures of President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and Minister of Interior Nouhad al-Mashnouq, said NNA.

A Constitutional Council meeting set to study an appeal of the new tax law that was approved to fund a new wage scale for civil servants and the armed forces was postponed until Monday, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday.

President Michel Aoun will deliver a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21 in New York highlighting the internal developments in Lebanon since the presidential elections last October, al-Mustaqbal daily reported on Friday.

The Assembly's annual session will open at the level of Heads of State on 19 June. It will be an opportunity for international, Arab and regional meetings to discuss the topics that are at the forefront of global concern and international priority issues.

Lebanon’s army stepped up security measures on Thursday outside the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh, the National News Agency reported.

The military intensified precautions and conducted security checks at the camp's main entrances, NNA said.

The Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, Ambassador Christina Lassen, visited on Thursday the 9th Brigade of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) deployed around the northeastern town of Arsal, an official statement said.

Lassen also held meetings with the Head of the Municipality of Arsal, Bassel el-Hujeiri, and with UN agencies representatives.

Kataeb party leader MP Sami Gemayel has called on “Lebanon's authority to step down” after a rally to celebrate the army's eastern border victory against Islamic State jihadists was called off, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

“Day after day, this authority proves its inability, failure and complicity, and day by day the need for its departure increases in order to save the free national decision and restore national sovereignty and establish the state's reference,” said Gemayel in an interview to the daily.

Hizbullah party said that the Islamic State group has released captive fighter Ahmed Maatouk early on Thursday as part of a Hizbullah-IS deal.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Russian presidency's summer headquarters in Sochi.

The Lebanese army arrested several Islamic State linked jihadists in Arsal and carried out raids on an industrial complex of controversial Islamist cleric Sheikh Mustafa al-Hujeiri, aka Abu Taqiyeh and confiscated ample amounts of arms, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

At dawn, the army detained Syrian national identified as Khaled Fayad Berro in the northeastern border town of Arsal for having links to the IS extremist group. He is also wanted on accusations of booby trapping vehicles and arranging suicide attack bombings, NNA said.

Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblat said on Wednesday that allocating revenues for the wage scale law should have been made possible in order to make the law applicable.

“We have already warned that the salary scale would be impossible to implement without proper revenues and reforms. Nobody listened. We have signed on an inapplicable bill,” said Jumblat in a tweet.