Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi on Sunday defended the performance of security agencies in unrest-hit Tripoli, claiming that there was an attempt to “destroy the state’s prestige” through attacks on certain public buildings.

“Security agencies did not commit mistakes in Tripoli and there was an objective to destroy the state’s prestige,” Fahmi said in a TV interview.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday lamented the ongoing exchange of tirades between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri as “saddening and shameful.”

“It is truly saddening and shameful that an unjustified dispute over the implementation of Article 53/4 of the constitution is the reason behind the tense relation between the president and the PM-designate, which has reached the extent of communicating through the responses and counter-responses of press offices and loyalist political parties,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Veteran Lebanese politician Michel Murr died Sunday from Covid-19, his family and state-run National News Agency said.

He was around 89 years old.

The Free Patriotic Movement said in a sharp statement on Saturday hitting out at PM-designate Saad Hariri, that “the tragedy” in Tripoli calls on him to visit Baabda Palace “immediately” in order to form a government “in agreement with Aoun.”

Firass Abiad, the Manager and CEO of state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital, said Saturday that concerns among Lebanese over possible side effects from COVID-19 vaccine could impede the vaccination drive.

A group of women blocked the highway in the northern region of Minieh on Saturday, protesting the dire economic conditions, the National News Agency reported.

The controversial Lebanese file and the problematic formation of a government in Lebanon are reportedly being addressed by French authorities with “seriousness,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

The latest heightened tensions in the northern city of Tripoli “were a deliberate and organized” act “exploiting” poverty in the northern city, and investigation was initiated to find the "culprits," al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

The Presidency’s press office on Friday accused PM-designate Saad Hariri of “insisting on forming the government on his own” and “rejecting to take President Michel Aoun’s remarks into consideration.”

In a statement, the press office said Aoun’s remarks “represent partnership in the formation of the government in line with Article 53 of the constitution.”

The restive northern city of Tripoli on Friday witnessed minor skirmishes between protesters and security forces after four days of violent clashes that left one person dead and over 250 injured.

In the afternoon, a number of young men gathered outside Tripoli’s Serail, the government’s main building in the city, where they pelted security forces with stones as some of them chanted “we’re hungry, we want to eat!”