Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem on Wednesday made a video message to the wounded of the 2024 Israeli pager attacks, marking the first anniversary of the bloody operation that resembled the opening strike of an all-out war against Hezbollah.

He described the wounded of those attacks at the “pioneers of insight, the key to hope, and the love of eternal life in obedience to God Almighty.”

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack on Wednesday extended gratitude to Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblat over his role in the pacification efforts in Syria’s Sweida, the scene of recent sectarian bloodshed.

“Sincere thanks to Walid Jumblatt for his wisdom and unparalleled stature in harnessing the collective views of valued Druze leaders, who live within various man-made boundaries and borders, but nevertheless are committed to a God that knows no borders or boundaries,” Barrack said in a post on X.

Hezbollah’s decision to illuminate Beirut’s iconic Pigeons’ Rock (Rock of Raouche) with pictures of its slain leaders Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine to mark their first assassination anniversary has stirred controversy in the country.

A Hezbollah spokesman said the move would take place from 5pm to 7pm on September 25, accompanied by “sea activities.”

The Finance Ministry said Wednesday afternoon that active and retired servicemen can receive their monthly financial aid as of Thursday, after retired servicemen blocked the Ring, Saifi and Beshara al-Khoury roads in Beirut to protest their living conditions and a delay in the payment of their compensations.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed Tuesday that his government did not create from scratch “the decision to extend the state’s authority across its territory, seeing as this decision had been in place since 1989, or since the Taif Agreement.”

“Today we are working on implementing it and it was underscored in President Joseph Aoun’s inaugural speech and in the Ministerial Statement,” Salam added, in a meeting with a delegation from the Press Syndicate.

The Political Advisor to Hezbollah's Secretary General, Hussein Khalil, has accused the government of succumbing to "external dictates" when it took a decision to disarm Hezbollah, which he dubbed, in a radio interview, "a major sin".

Khalil said that the decision was faced with the strength and unity of the Shiite community.

President Joseph Aoun has met, on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Doha, with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the presidency said in a statement.

Aoun and al-Sharaa discussed bilateral relations, security along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the maritime border demarcation and the repatriation of Syrian refugees.

An Israeli airstrike targeted a building on the outskirts of the southern city of Nabatieh overnight, wounding 14 people, among them at least four children and seven women, the Health Ministry and the National News Agency said.

Two of the children are in critical condition, the Ministry added.

President Joseph Aoun on Monday announced that “the picture after the (Israeli) aggression against Doha has become clear and the response to it must be equally clear.”

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Monday criticized Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon despite its ceasefire with Hezbollah.

“In Lebanon, the Lebanese government’s acceptance of a U.S. paper is being met with bombardment and assassinations, and Israel is seeking to push it into civil war in order for it to halt its attacks on it,” Sheikh Tamim lamented during an emergency Arab-Islamic summit responding to Israel’s unprecedented airstrike against Hamas officials in Doha.