The Higher Defense Council on Thursday expressed “relief” over the security situation in the country and decided to keep its resolutions confidential, following an emergency meeting at the Baabda Palace that tackled the issue of the Lebanese-Syrian border and the influx of refugees and gunmen from Syria.

The council “was briefed by the heads of the security agencies about the results of the security missions performed in several Lebanese regions and the border areas, expressing relief over the general security situation,” council spokesman Maj. Gen. Adnan Merheb announced after the meeting.

The Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Wednesday carried out a joint live firing exercise combining artillery and machine gun fire near UNIFIL Headquarters in the southern town of Naqoura, UNIFIL said in a statement.

Named “Neptune Thunder”, the military exercise is periodically carried out by the army and UNIFIL forces.

Major-General Paolo Serra, Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), on Sunday stressed that U.N. peacekeepers will continue to fully cooperate with the Lebanese army and the local authorities, calling on everyone to benefit from the calm the South has been enjoying.

Serra noted that the past five years were the calmest for southern Lebanon.

An Israeli task force composed of twenty soldiers supported by four military vehicles entered 75 meters into the disputed area near Adaysseh and erected barbed wires.

The UNIFIL and the Lebanese security services arrived at the scene, and the Lebanese army launched a probe into the incident.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Saturday that the United Nations and international community’s support for Lebanon represent a central step in establishing peace and stability in the country.

He during a dinner thrown in visiting U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon’s honor: “We need the international community’s support in forcing Israel to halt its violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and implement international resolutions.”

Three students and a teacher were injured on Thursday when a school bus overturned on the main road of Shahour-Tayr Felsay in the district of Tyre.

The National News Agency said the injured were taken to Jabal Amel hospital in the southern city of Tyre for treatment.

Israel is considering walling off part of its border with Lebanon, fearing sniper fire at newly-built apartment blocks in the frontier town of Metulla, Israeli military sources said on Tuesday.

They said Israel was liaising with Lebanese and U.N. officials with a view to erecting an anti-sniper wall along a kilometer-long section of the frontier between Metulla and Kfarkila, a Lebanese village which at one point had a high-rise casino adjacent to the existing border fence.

Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn said Monday that the authorities know the identity of militants launching rockets on Israel in an attempt to destabilize southern Lebanon.

“We know who is launching the rockets, who is making them, who is making the explosives and who is destabilizing the South,” Ghosn told As Safir newspaper.

A U.N. "strategy" review of its peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which has been hit by several attacks in recent months, is to be completed in coming weeks, a U.N. spokesman said Thursday.

The spokesman denied however that it was linked to the attacks -- the latest of which saw five French peacekeepers wounded and France accusing Syria of involvement.

Hizbullah snapped back at March 14 opposition officials on Thursday, saying they were making “dangerous” accusations over the roadside bombing that targeted French U.N. peacekeepers last week.

“The dangerous and unacceptable statements” made by some March 14 officials are a sign that they “are part of the scheme targeting the resistance,” Hizbullah said in a statement.