A meeting over the Lebanese presidential file will be held in Paris, by the end of the year, al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

The daily said Thursday that an American-French-Saudi-Qatari meeting is being prepared to discuss possible presidential candidates, adding that France has set a deadline for a political settlement to be reached.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Thursday that sweeping reforms remain vital to rescue the stricken economy, despite a return to modest growth this year.

Mikati said the economy had grown by nearly two percent in 2022 after two straight years of severe recession that saw Gross Domestic Product fall by 25.9 percent in 2020 and by 10.5 percent in 2021, according to World Bank figures.

The head of the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon, Joe Salloum, warned Wednesday that the dramatic surge in the dollar exchange rate on the black market has led to “a near-complete halt of the delivery of medicines and baby milk to pharmacies.”

Pharmacies are “gradually running out” of medicines and baby milk, Salloum cautioned.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that the FPM’s relation with Hezbollah has not been severed while noting that “there is no dialogue at the moment.”

Adding that he does not want a divorce with the longtime ally, Bassil told al-Akhbar newspaper that the 2006 memorandum of understanding between the two parties is “no longer sufficient.”

A wounded Irish U.N. peacekeeper was transferred on Wednesday from a hospital in Sidon to Beirut's international airport to be medically evacuated to Ireland.

Unidentified attackers opened fire on 22-year-old Pvt. Shane Kearney and three other Irish soldiers with UNIFIL, the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, last week as their convoy passed near the southern town of Al-Aqbiya.

Former president Michel Aoun on Tuesday presided over the weekly meeting of the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc for the first time since leaving office.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Tuesday urged the "speedy election" of a president in Lebanon and the formation of a new government to "carry out badly needed reforms."

Lebanon's cabinet is acting in a caretaker capacity, and the country has been without a head of state for more than a month.

The Israeli army on Tuesday said it downed a small suspected Hezbollah drone as it crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel.

“Troops identified and downed a drone crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory a short while ago,” the Israeli army said on its English-language Twitter account, adding that the drone “most likely” belongs to Hezbollah.

Opposition presidential candidate MP Michel Mouawad on Tuesday denied that he is “communicating with Hezbollah.”

“Some known and tendentious parties are trying to fabricate reports about communication that I’m carrying out with Hezbollah, claiming that I’m keen to keep my meetings confidential,” Mouawad tweeted.

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari on Tuesday held talks in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, the state-run National News Agency said.

“Bukhari stressed the need to hold the presidential election as soon as possible and to form a government that would be in harmony with the president in order to revive the country,” Bkirki sources told LBCI television.