The political leader of the Palestinian militant movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived Sunday in Beirut on an official visit that is part of a tour that the Islamist movement’s leadership kicked off in the beginning of this month.

“This visit comes within the framework of capitalizing on the resistance’s great victory in the Sword of Jerusalem battle,” Haniyeh said in a press conference at Beirut airport.

Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi and caretaker Deputy PM and Defense and Foreign Minister Zeina Akar on Sunday hailed a coordinated narcotics bust with Saudi authorities that led to the seizure of 14.4 million amphetamine pills in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Saudi customs officials found the captagon tablets "hidden in iron sheets coming from Lebanon," the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus has become widespread in most countries but it has not yet reached Lebanon, the caretaker health minister’s advisor, Mohammed Haidar, said on Sunday.

“Its presence in more than 100 nations might lead to its arrival in Lebanon through expats,” Haidar warned.

Lebanese protesters tried to storm central bank offices in two major cities overnight, state media reported, after the national currency plunged to a new record low on the black market.

The pound has been pegged to the dollar at 1,507 since 1997, but the country's worst economic crisis in decades has seen its unofficial value plummet.

The Iranian embassy in Lebanon on Saturday lashed out at U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea over remarks related to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's call for buying fuel from Iran.

Road-blocking protests continued Saturday in Lebanon and several shops closed in the northern city of Tripoli as the Lebanese lira plummeted to unprecedented lows.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea on Friday criticized Lebanese parties seeking a so-called blocking one-third in the new government, as she said that importing fuel ships from Iran is “really not a solution.”

“Now is the time to build a government, not to block a government,” Shea said in an interview on al-Jadeed TV.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday thanked Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil for the “confidence” that he placed in him in his latest remarks, but he noted that he cannot act as a “referee” in the cabinet formation process.

“We have started to fulfill the request of Minister Bassil,” said Nasrallah in televised address dedicated to the domestic developments, referring to Bassil’s request that he step in as a “friend” and “referee” to resolve the disagreements related to the new cabinet.

Media officials from Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, in addition to news directors and social media officers from both sides, held a coordinative meeting Friday at the FPM’s headquarters in Sin el-Fil, a statement said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Friday granted extraordinary approval for a decision under which the central bank will subsidize fuel imports at a rate of LBP 3,900 for the dollar instead of LBP 1,500, which will effectively hike the prices of fuel in the market.