The U.S. department of state has said in a statement that the U.S. is committed to countering Hezbollah and Iran’s "malign influence."

The statement was issued in memory of the victims and survivors of the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the 2012 attack on a tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, carrying Israeli tourists. The attacks were described by the U.S. department of state as "two heinous Hezbollah attacks, carried out with Iranian support."

A ministerial committee on Monday agreed to grant civil servants financial incentives aimed at putting an end to a public sector strike that has paralyzed state administrations.

The committee also decided to revoke a salary hike that had been recently granted to judges in an exclusive manner.

The Finance Parliamentary Committee on Monday “approved the amendments of the banking secrecy law in a manner that serves preventing tax evasion and combating corruption, terror funding and illicit enrichment,” Committee head MP Ibrahim Kanaan said.

“Our concern is transparency and preventing selectivity,” Kanaan added.

The Israeli army on Monday said it brought down a small quadcopter drone likely belonging to Hezbollah after it crossed from southern Lebanon into Israel.

“Earlier today, the Israeli Defense Forces detected the infiltration of a drone from Lebanese territory into Israeli territory before bringing it down. The aerial surveillance units monitored the drone throughout the incident,” Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee tweeted, adding that the quadcopter drone “seems to be linked to terrorist Hezbollah.”

President Michel Aoun on Monday stressed the need for the judiciary to issue rulings in the “pending cases, especially those related to financial lawsuits and the Beirut port blast crime.”

“The families of the victims and the detainees are still awaiting the judiciary’s rulings,” Aoun said in a meeting in Baabda with caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury, Higher Judicial Council chief Judge Suheil Abboud, State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat and the judges Afif al-Hakim, Habib Mezher, Elias Richa, Dany Chebli and Mereille al-Haddad.

U.S. energy mediator Amos Hochstein may visit Beirut within two weeks, amid reports of progress in the file of sea border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel.

“A U.S. endeavor will kick off within the next two weeks, through an expected visit by U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein aimed at reviving the negotiations,” Lebanon’s al-Binaa newspaper reported on Monday.

President Michel Aoun said Monday that he has “spared no effort in order to achieve the aspired reform.”

He, however, added that each time he used to “run into domestic obstacles that left their negative repercussions on the progress of the situations.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday warned a U.S. delegation against any further delay in the U.S.-mediated talks between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate their maritime border.

“There is no more time for procrastination and delay in the demarcation of the sea boundary and for allowing the companies that won the tenders to start their work,” Berri told a delegation from the American Task Force for Lebanon, which was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea.

Lebanon's renowned Baalbek festival is back, held in front of a live audience for the first time since 2019, despite the country's economic meltdown and the coronavirus pandemic.

French pianist Simon Ghraichy performed in front of a full house on Sunday night in what organizers described as a night of hope for Lebanon's revival. The annual festival in the ancient northeastern city of soaring Roman columns has long attracted celebrities from around the world.

Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad has said that the Lebanese are the masters of their country.

"We are the ones who decide on our policies in a way that serves the interests of our children and our future generations," Raad said. "We do not choose our policies based on programs that the black chambers prepare for us," he went on to say.