The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad has said that Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah military chief Haitham Tabatabai and his companions was a “targeting of entire Lebanon -- the state, the army, the resistance and the people.”

“It is their right and duty all to act in a manner that halts the Zionist violation of the country. Coordination and integration impose themselves on everyone and no one can disavow their national duties,” Raad added, in an interview with the al-Modon news portal.

Former Central Bank governor Riad Salameh asserted in an interview with Al-Arabiya Business that he has become a “scapegoat” for the financial crisis that has plagued Lebanon in recent years, denying any connection to depositors' losses or the collapse of the banking sector.

Salameh stated that he is not implicated in any of the legal cases pending in Lebanon, France, or any other European country, noting that the Syrian war cost Lebanon $25-30 billion.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri denied, in remarks published Friday in ad-Diyar newspaper, that Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty warned Lebanon about an imminent escalation as he met with Lebanese leaders in Beirut Thursday.

"No threat was conveyed to us," Berri said, adding that the threats are coming from Israeli media and not from visiting envoys.

The commander of the South Litani sector of the Lebanese Army, Brigadier General Nicolas Tabet, announced Friday that the army does not coordinate with any local party in carrying out its operations within the South Litani region.

During a tour for journalists in the South Litani sector, Tabet emphasized that coordination is exclusively with the Army Command and that there has been "zero objection" from residents to the army's operations in the area.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has warned that “the country is facing significant challenges and dangers.”

“Those who promised the people reform and sovereignty are not implementing anything, and no one believes them, neither domestically nor internationally,” said Bassil during an annual FPM dinner in Beirut.

President Joseph Aoun rejected Thursday Israel's claims that the army is not doing enough to disarm Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

"These claims are baseless," Aoun said, adding that the ceasefire monitoring committee is "documenting what the army has done and is doing daily."

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Thursday that Hezbollah failed to deter Israeli attacks on Lebanon or stop the Israeli war on Gaza.

"Their weapons did not protect their leaders nor the Lebanese people and their properties, and the proof of that is the dozens of levelled villages," Salam said.

The Israeli army carried out Thursday a series of airstrikes on the heights of the Iqlim al-Tuffah region in south Lebanon.

The strikes targeted al-Jarmaq and al-Mahmoudiyyeh, heights that Israel frequently targets despite a ceasefire reached last year.

Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat condemned Thursday a statement by the advisor of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after other Lebanese politicians including LF leader Samir Geagea and Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji condemned what they described as an interference in Lebanese affairs.

Khamenei's adviser Ali Akbar Velayati had said Wednesday that "Hezbollah’s presence has become more necessary to Lebanon than water and bread," to which Geagea responded that Lebanon is a sovereign country and that Iran has no right to interfere in its affairs.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Hezbollah would not disarm amid Israeli occupation and Israel would not withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms, although the ceasefire stipulates that Israel withdraw.

Salam told The New York Times, in remarks published Wednesday, that he had unsuccessfully urged Chairman of the ceasefire committee Major General Jasper Jeffers to pressure Israel to withdraw. Salam said he raised the issue with Jeffers for several months and reached no result.