Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday stressed that the country’s next president must have a “vision” to improve the situations.

“The people need a president who would pull Lebanon out of conflicts instead of keeping it in them,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

U.S. District Attorney Jason Schmidt has told a court judge that Hadi Matar took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm "The Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

Israeli police said Sunday they had arrested a suspect in a shooting attack on a bus in Jerusalem's Old City that wounded eight people, including two critically.

"The terrorist is in our hands," police spokesman Kan Eli Levy told public radio hours after the attack that took place not far from the Western Wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews.

The man who stabbed the author Salman Rushdie in New York state, Hadi Matar, was born in the U.S. to Lebanese parents who emigrated from the southern border town of Yaroun, the town’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press and Lebanese media outlets.

“He has never visited Lebanon,” Tehfe added.

Israeli Energy Minister Karen Elharrar has said that the Israeli proposal submitted to Lebanon to solve the sea border dispute is “good, constructive and moves towards a solution.”

EDUCITY & Beirut Expo have announced that Middle East Clean Energy, the premiere renewable and sustainable energy trade fair and conference in Lebanon and the wider Levant, will be held in Beirut on September 7-9, 2022.

Middle East Clean Energy 2022 is organized in response to an unprecedented rise in demand for modern equipment and technologies that leverage renewable energy in Lebanon and the region. In 2021 alone in Lebanon, despite its crisis, customers spent $800 million on clean energy solutions. 

Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, the armed depositor who took hostages Thursday at Federal Bank’s Hamra branch before turning himself in, has started a hunger strike, al-Jadeed TV reported on Friday.

Democratic Gathering Bloc MP Taymour Jumblat met Friday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, a day after a meeting between his father Walid Jumblat and a delegation from Hezbollah.

"Our national and historic partnership is steady," the lawmaker said.

The Army Command announced Friday that it has received the Qatari financial donation that had been granted by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad in support of servicemen’s salaries.

In a statement, the Command said all servicemen will get equal amounts of money as of today.

Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh Shami said Friday that Lebanon is at a crossroads between reforms and further collapse.

"We have drawn a roadmap for economic, financial and monetary reforms through an agreement with the International Monetary Fund," Shami said, urging for a quick implementation of the IMF's prerequisites in order to reach a final agreement as soon as possible.