All detainees in the Beirut port blast case were released on Wednesday after State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat ordered their release in a move disputed by the lead investigator in the case Judge Tarek Bitar.

A picture circulated by media outlets showed Customs chief Badri Daher smiling in his home following his release. He had been detained on August 7, 2020, three days after the catastrophic blast which killed over 215 people, injured more than 6,500 and destroyed entire neighborhoods.

State Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat on Wednesday charged Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar for "rebelling against the judiciary" and slapped him with a travel ban, a judicial official told AFP.

Oueidat said that he charged Bitar in order to "prevent sedition."

Hezbollah and the Amal Movement are willing to push for Suleiman Franjieh’s election as president with 65 votes even if he does not win the support of any of the two main Christian blocs – the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces, MP Ali Hassan Khalil said overnight.

“If Suleiman Franjieh gathers 65 votes without the two Christian blocs, we will push for his election, seeing as our priority is consensus, but when the battle becomes a battle of numbers, each side would do what its interest dictates,” Khalil said in an interview with MTV.

The arm-wrestling between Prosecutor General Ghassan Oueidat and judge Tarek Bitar, who is investigating the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast, is the latest of crisis-torn Lebanon's mounting woes, as the value of the national currency hit a new record low against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday.

Dozens protested in front of the Central Bank in Beirut, denouncing the slide of the Lebanese pound, which began in 2019.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday designated several individuals and associated entities accused of “facilitating financial activities for Hezbollah.”

Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar, who resumed his probe Monday in a surprise move after a 13-month suspension, has said that he did what his “conscience dictated” on him after “having reached a dead end.”

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a tweet Tuesday that "we support and urge Lebanese authorities to complete a swift and transparent investigation into the horrific explosion at the Port of Beirut".

The lead investigator into the blast, Judge Tarek Bitar, had decided Monday, to widespread surprise, to resume his probe into the disaster, despite the strong political pressure against him.

MP Ghazi Zoaiter angrily stormed out Tuesday of a session for the Administration and Justice Parliamentary Committee during the discussion of a law on the independence of the judiciary.

Hezbollah Coordination and Liaison Officer Wafiq Safa has said after meeting Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil that "those dismayed by the (Hezbollah-FPM) understanding will not be happy tonight."

A Hezbollah delegation comprising Safa and Hezbollah secretary-general’s aide Hussein Khalil had met Monday with Bassil in Sin el-Fil's Mirna Chalouhi area.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday noted that the caretaker cabinet “will certainly convene to tackle urgent issues.”