President Michel Aoun on Monday stressed that “national unity” should be preserved in the approach towards the formation of the new government.

“I sensed from His Excellency the President his insistence on honoring the principle of national unity in his dealing with the government formation crisis,” Central Council of the Maronite Societies chief Wadih al-Khazen said after meeting Aoun in Baabda.

Outgoing minister of public works Michel Najjar said Monday that he has signed a decree that would increase the area claimed by the Mediterranean country in a maritime border dispute with Israel.

Najjar told reporters that he has signed an amendment of the decree that would formally extend Lebanon's claims by 1,430 square kilometers (550 square miles). The unilateral move by Lebanon is likely to anger Israel and the U.S. who are not expected to recognize Beirut's extension of the disputed area.

The United States reportedly relayed a “strict” message to Lebanon through the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, regarding the indirect maritime demarcation talks between Lebanon and Israel, media reports said on Monday.

As part of the international mobility towards Lebanon, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs David Hale will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday to meet senior Lebanese officials, media reports said Monday.

Director of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Firass Abiad, said on Monday that the number of covid-19 cases are expected to rise during the holy month of Ramadan due to the ritual gatherings practiced during the month of fasting.

Corrupts “fear forensic audit” whereas “innocents are pleased by it,” President Michel Aoun said Sunday in a tweet.

The president’s tweet comes hours after a stance by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on the issue.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan on Sunday lashed out at “the obstructors of government’s formation,” urging them to end their “intransigence, arrogance, falsification and violation of the constitution.”

“There are malicious hands that are covertly working on obstructing the lauded brotherly Arab efforts and foiling the French initiative,” Daryan warned in a message marking the advent of the holy month of Ramadan.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday warned against selectivity and bias in the issue of conducting a forensic audit of the central bank’s accounts, days after President Michel Aoun urged the Lebanese to support him in what he called the forensic audit battle.

“The call for a forensic audit would be serious if it is comprehensive, not intentionally selective. And in the first place, there can be no forensic audit before the formation of the government,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

MP Mohammed al-Hajjar of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc stressed Sunday that “there will be no government as long as there is a party that is obstructing and insisting on the ‘blocking one-third.’”

“President Michel Aoun and ex-minister Jebran Bassil are obstructing the formation process,” Hajjar said in a radio interview.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri’s press office on Saturday described as “fabricated” a report published in al-Akhbar daily claiming that the PM was behind the posopnemnet of caretaker PM Hassan Diab’s trip to Iraq.