President Michel Aoun received a telephone call on Friday from his French counterpart where talks focused on the hurdles delaying the formation of the government missing a French deadline.

An Israeli court on Friday charged a Palestinian woman from east Jerusalem with membership in a terrorist organization after Israel's internal security service said the Lebanese group Hizbullah had recruited her five years ago.

Yasmine Jaber was arrested in early August. The Shin Bet internal security service said she was recruited by Hizbullah operatives at a conference in 2015 and asked to recruit others in east Jerusalem. It said she traveled to Istanbul on a number of occasions to meet Hizbullah operatives and communicated with them via social media.

A hearing session kicked off at Mount Lebanon's Justice Palace to question anti-Hizbullah Shiite scholar Ali al-Amin over accusations of "meeting Israeli officials” during a conference in Bahrain.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged Thursday that Hizbullah “exploits Lebanon’s corrupt system just like other parties,” as the U.S. Treasury slapped sanctions on two Lebanon-based firms and a man described as a Hizbullah official.

“Lebanon’s political leaders have long exploited the lack of transparency in Lebanon’s economy to conceal their self-enrichment, while pretending they are defending the rights of their people. Despite its claims to the contrary, the terrorist group Hizbullah is every bit as involved in this deception as other actors,” Pompeo added in a statement.

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday imposed sanctions on two Lebanon-based companies and a man described as a Hizbullah official.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, sanctioned the companies Arch Consulting and Meamar Construction "for being owned, controlled, or directed by Hizbullah."

Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib on Thursday met President Michel Aoun in Baabda after which he announced that more time will be given to the efforts aimed at forming a new government.

“I discussed with the president the difficulties that we are facing in the formation of a new government,” said Adib after the talks.

Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc on Thursday condemned a perceived attempt by “those who are forming the government behind the scenes to usurp the representation of the country’s other components by preventing the PM-designate from consulting with the blocs.”

“They have invented a new mechanism aimed at preventing the components from naming their ministers in the government on the one hand, and at disrupting the governmental balance through seizing the finance portfolio from others and running it on the other hand,” the bloc added in a statement issued after a periodic meeting.

Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib held a meeting Thursday afternoon with Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide Ali Hassan Khalil and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s assistant Hussein Khalil in a bid to reach an eleventh-hour agreement over the finance ministerial portfolio.

The meeting came ahead of a crucial 5pm meeting between Adib and President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace.

Lebanon's largest prison has more than 200 coronavirus cases, the head of the country's doctors' union warned Thursday, calling for speedy trials to ease overcrowding.

Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib will not step down and is expected to visit Baabda for Cabinet talks, but without carrying a lineup format, LBCI television reported on Thursday.