Head of Parliament's Finance and Budget Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan said Monday that the central bank has requested a grace period until the end of the year to study the issue of raising the value of withdrawals.

The Finance and Budget Committee had met with representatives of BDL and the depositors, in the presence of the minister of finance and the association of banks to discuss raising the exchange rate for bank withdrawals, currently set at LBP 3,900/USD.

Judge Tarek Bitar on Monday received a request demanding his removal from the Beirut port blast case, which effectively suspends his probe pending a decision from the Court of Appeals.

The development follows a lawsuit filed by ex-interior minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq.

Head of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat slammed Monday the “Axis of Defiance” in a tweet.

“They only utter threats,” Jumblat said.

President Michel Aoun chaired a meeting Monday to proceed with the discussions concerning the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Deputy PM Saadeh al-Shami, and the two ministers of Finance and Economy Youssef al-Khalil and Amin Salam.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday deplored those attacking the judiciary with the aim of “obstructing the investigation” into the catastrophic Beirut port explosion.

“The Lebanese state’s top officials should condemn the attacks on the judiciary and support the work of the investigative judge so that he can reach the truth,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc on Sunday called on Lebanese authorities to “giver answers” about the source and owners of the ammonium nitrate quantity that was seized in the Bekaa.

“The continued concealment of the source of the Bekaa nitrates and the way they entered Lebanon and were being illegally stored raises major question marks over the motives and sides that are trying to cover up this essential case,” Fadlallah said in a statement.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Saturday stressed the importance of preserving the right of expats to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, while calling for cooperation with Judge Tarek Bitar’s investigation into the catastrophic Beirut port blast.

“The government’s formation gave the Lebanese hope that the country has entered a phase of relative stability and a halt of the collapse,” the FPM’s political committee said in a statement issued after a periodic e-meeting chaired by FPM chief MP Jebran Bassil.

President Michel Aoun on Friday called on the international community to assist Lebanon’s probe into the port explosion catastrophe, as he warned that Lebanon will not bargain over its offshore oil and gas resources in the border dispute with Israel.

“The investigation, which is still confidential, must identify who brought the explosive material, why it entered our port and the real side that was behind it,” Aoun told the U.N. General Assembly via videolink.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Najib Miqati to undertake "urgent" reforms to help his crisis-wracked country, as the two men met for the first time in Paris.

After repeating previous criticisms of Lebanon's political class, Macron told Miqati it was "urgent to implement measures and essential reforms."

Head of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat asked Friday "what has become of the Iraqi oil” and “who are the companies in charge of replacing it with fuel in order to produce electricity?”