The Lebanese judge investigating the massive 2020 Beirut port explosion questioned two former security chiefs on Friday, including former General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who appeared in court for the first time since being summoned nearly four years ago, according to four judicial and two security officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. The hearings mark a rare breakthrough in the long-stalled probe.

The conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah caused more than $700 million in agricultural damage and losses, a report from the United Nations and Lebanese authorities said.

"The agriculture sector in Lebanon has incurred an estimated $118 million in damages and $586 million in losses," said the assessment by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization with Lebanon's agriculture ministry and the National Council for Scientific Research.

Lebanon has been clearly informed that it can't rebuild what Israel has destroyed in more than a year of war with Hezbollah unless Hezbollah is disarmed.

Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji told Asharq al-Awsat, in remarks published Friday, that Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus has herself, among others before her, told Lebanese leaders that Lebanon will not receive foreign aid before disarming Hezbollah.

President Joseph Aoun is communicating with Hezbollah’s leadership to “coordinate over the issue of Hezbollah’s arms south of the Litani River and over the mechanism that the Lebanese Army Command is adopting to remove Hezbollah’s weapons,” al-Binaa newspaper reported on Friday.

MP Ali Fayyad of Hezbollah has stressed that the party is “open to any domestic dialogue course launched by the Lebanese state to address the pending files.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has criticized calls for dialogue with Hezbollah over its arms, calling for a deadline for disarming the group south and north of the Litani river.

In an interview on Thursday night with MTV, Geagea said there is no room for defense strategies and dialogues, calling instead for immediately setting a deadline of six months for the disarmament of Hezbollah.

President Joseph Aoun on Friday inspected the Port of Beirut and met with acting Customs chief Raymond Khoury, the Presidency said.

Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar on Friday interrogated former General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim in the case, in the latter’s first appearance before the magistrate.

An Israeli infantry force on Friday crossed the border into the al-Wazzani parks in south Lebanon, the National News Agency said.

Near front lines where they once battled each other, former fighters in Lebanon's civil war now gather to bear the same message, half a century after the devastating conflict erupted: never again.