MP Neemat Frem, who left the Strong Lebanon bloc following the October uprising, on Monday announced his boycott of a parliamentary session that will debate Cabinet’s policy statement and vote on confidence in the new government.

Frem said he took his decision because he believes that the draft policy statement “is not befitting of the magnitude of the challenges and the means to confront them.”

The Army Command on Monday mourned three soldiers killed Sunday in an ambush in the Hermel area of al-Mesherfeh while chasing a stolen car.

It identified them as First Sergeant Ali Ismail, 37, First Sergeant Ahmed Haidar Ahmed, 33, and Soldier Hasan Ezzeddine, 28.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil has urged an end to arms proliferation in the country in the wake of death of three army troops in a raid in Hermel.

“The martyrdom of three army soldiers during the pursuit of armed robbers in Hermel strongly raises the issue of arms proliferation,” Bassil tweeted.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Sunday condemned an ambush that resulted in the death of two army troops and the wounding of three others.

“The ambush that the Lebanese Army patrol came under targets stability, which the Lebanese Army has played an essential role in protecting,” Diab said.

Two army troops were killed and three others wounded in a raid to arrest a fugitive in the Hermel area of Ras al-Assi on Sunday.

The fugitive, identified as Kh.A.D., was also killed in the operation.

The Foreign Ministry on Sunday denied an al-Akhbar newspaper report claiming that the appointment of Ambassador Farah Berri as acting charge d’affaires at Lebanon’s embassy in Qatar was a “political deal between ex-minister Jebran Bassil and Speaker Nabih Berri at the expense of the treasury.”

Farah Berri is the parliament speaker’s daughter.

Health Minister Hamad Hasan announced Sunday that a Lebanese young woman who arrived from China in recent days has been quarantined at the Rafik Hariri state-run hospital “at her own request.”

The woman had appeared in a viral video in which she criticized the ministry’s precautionary measures at Beirut’s airport and said the country lacks test kits that can verify whether or not a person is carrying the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

Maronite Archbishop of Beirut Boulos Abdul Sater on Sunday noted that “a true leader is one who resists the naturalization (of refugees) and one who chooses to leave rather than disappoint or harm his people.”

“A true leader is not one who believes that the country is a property for him and for his children after him or one who monopolizes power and aggrieves those who placed their confidence in him,” Abdul Sater said in a sermon marking Saint Maron’s Day.

Defying a cold storm that saw temperatures drop significantly in Lebanon, demonstrators kicked off a march on Saturday rejecting the new government of PM Hassan Diab named to deal with an economic crisis, which they say lacks a popular mandate.

Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm stressed in a tweet on Saturday that investigations kept unresolved for an indefinite period of time won’t be tolerated and that she will use her powers to accelerate probes.