More than 50 countries, including Lebanon, and the U.N. agreed urgent action to end sexual violence in conflict at the UK-hosted PSVI Conference this week, signing up to a new declaration, the British embassy in Lebanon said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has blamed Hezbollah and its allies for the crises that are gripping the country, noting that dialogue with them is of no use.

“We cannot exit the crisis through talking to those who caused it,” Geagea said in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat newspaper published Wednesday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will provide cover for any call for a cabinet session that caretaker PM Najib Mikati may make, informed sources said.

“Necessities permit the forbidden and if preserving (sectarian) balances is necessary, protecting people’s health is a duty,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

Football fans looking for a respite from Lebanon's crushing economic crisis have found a challenge in simply watching the World Cup after the bankrupt state failed to pay for broadcasting rights.

"No football this year," said Jean Bassil angrily, flicking through channels on his old-fashioned television screen.

Lawmaker and presidential candidate Michel Mouawad slammed Wednesday a capital control draft law after joint parliamentary sessions resumed discussing it.

Mouawad said that the law will make the depositors bear the burden of the financial crisis.

Eighteen people have gone on trial in Ivory Coast accused of involvement in one of West Africa's bloodiest jihadist attacks -- a machine-gun assault on a beach resort in 2016 that left 19 dead, including one Lebanese.

But only four of the 18 will be physically present for the long-awaited proceedings in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's economic hub.

Joint parliamentary committees convened again on Wednesday to resume the discussion of a capital control draft law.

The committees had convened Tuesday, as depositors and activists rallied near Parliament to protest the law.

A depositor stormed Wednesday a bank in the town of Chhîm to retrieve his savings in order to fund his wife’s cancer treatment.

Depositor Walid Hajjar walked into the Credit Libanais Bank with his family, poured about gasoline and threatened to set the bank on fire if he did not get his money out.

The U.S. team's victory over Iran at the World Cup on Tuesday was closely watched across the Middle East, where the two nations have been engaged in a cold war for over four decades and where many blame one or both for the region's woes.

Critics of Iran say it has fomented war and unrest across the Arab world by supporting powerful armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories. Supporters view it as the leader of an "axis of resistance" against what they see as U.S. imperialism, corrupt Arab rulers and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians.

Heavy rains on Tuesday caused powerful flashfloods in Jounieh, Kaslik and Kfar Hbab in the Keserwan district, trapping motorists in their vehicles and causing major damage, media reports said.

The rains also submerged Jbeil’s old souks.