The United Nations launched an appeal Friday to raise $565 million to help Lebanon recover from this month's devastating port blast that killed 171 people.

The UN said in a statement that the funds would be used to support Lebanon as it moves from immediate life-saving humanitarian relief towards rebuilding its shattered economy.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said the Lebanese state and people should have a say in any response should the investigation into the Beirut port blast prove that Israel was behind it.

“Hizbullah does not have an account of events about the Beirut port blast… Hizbullah is awaiting the results of the investigation,” said Nasrallah in a televised speech marking the 2006 war with Israel.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday warned that the presence of foreign warships on Lebanon’s coast represents “a threat to the Lebanese people and its resistance.”

“The presence of foreign warships on Lebanon’s coast is not normal and it is a threat to the Lebanese people and its resistance,” Zarif, who is on a visit to Lebanon, told al-Mayadeen television in response to a question about the issue.

Judicial investigator into the Beirut port blast Judge Fadi Sawan on Friday received a lawsuit filed by State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat against 25 people including 19 detainees, the National News Agency said.

Sawan also received the files of the preliminary investigations and started studying them ahead of the interrogations that he will kick off on Monday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday called for the formation in Lebanon of “a strong new government that enjoys the support of all Lebanese parties.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Friday that Western countries should not take advantage of the massive explosion in Beirut last week that killed and injured thousands of people to dictate their own policies on the tiny Arab country.

Zarif's comments came in Beirut as a senior U.S. official and France's defense minister were in the country. The Aug. 4 blast at Beirut's port killed nearly 180 people, injured 6,000 and caused widespread damage in the capital.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale met with senior Lebanese officials on Friday, one day after arriving into Lebanon and bypassing politicians to head straight to a hard-hit neighbourhood where young volunteers are helping people after the colossal Beirut blast

Representatives of the victims killed in Beirut blast on Friday expressed mistrust in a state-backed probe into the deadly colossal explosion, demanding international investigation.

Lebanon's judicial investigation of the Beirut port explosion started with political wrangling over the naming of a lead investigator, military threats to jail leakers and doubts over whether a panel appointed along sectarian lines could be fully impartial.

So for many Lebanese, their greatest hope for credible answers about the blast that wrecked much of their capital may lie with outsiders: the French forensic police who have joined the probe and FBI investigators are expected to take part.

Investigation into the gigantic portside explosion in Beirut reportedly points to security shortfall that security services at Beirut port bear responsibility for, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.