Gunbattles renewed on Thursday between the Fatah Movement and members of an Islamist group led by Bilal Badr in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh.

The sounds of intermittent shooting continued early on Thursday between the fighting parties, NNA said.

Speaker Nabih Berri called the parliamentarians for a meeting on September 28 to elect a head for the Lebanese republic after they failed over 44 sessions to achieve the goal.

Below is ex-PM Saad Hariri's OP-ED published in the New York Times on Thursday:

On Feb. 14, 2005, a massive bomb killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, my father, along with 22 other Lebanese. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague identified five Hizbullah operatives as suspected collaborators in the murder. If proved, that would mean his assassination was carried out by Iran’s allies in Lebanon, who are financed and controlled by the regime in Tehran.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil blamed the Arab countries for the worsening refugee crisis as he pointed out that “terrorism has surpassed all boundaries,” the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

Bassil highlighted the simmering refugee crisis, he wondered whether encouraging migration and losing diversity in the region was what Arabs really wanted.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam will call the cabinet for a meeting as soon as he returns from a U.N. meeting in New York, to address a pending agenda that was postponed from an earlier gathering including delaying the term extension of Army commander General Jean Qahwaji and Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Walid Salman, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

Ministerial sources spoke on condition of anonymity and asserted to the daily that Salam will call the cabinet to session next Thursday to discuss an agenda that was postponed after it was boycotted by ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement and Tashnaq party. It is planned to address other issues that surfaced.

Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel reiterated Wednesday that his party cannot vote for any presidential candidate endorsing the March 8 camp's political vision for the country.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Emmanuel Bonne briefed Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Wednesday on his country's preparations for hosting a meeting for the International Support Group for Lebanon, state-run National News Agency reported.

“The young children playing in the school yards of Tibnin dreaming of a bright future, men and women going to work every day in Bint Jbeil to support their families and the elderly residents of Naqoura enjoying evening chai with their neighbors as the sun sets over Tyre. These are the people we are here to support so that they and their communities can not only survive but also prosper and to lay the foundations of peace for the coming generations.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam held talks Wednesday in New York with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday called on all parties not to use his stance as an “excuse” to justify their own stances regarding the stalled presidential vote.