It is very likely that a Cabinet session will be held on Monday with the aim of extending the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun and the probable appointment of a new chief of staff, informed sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Saturday.

The Free Patriotic Movement has meanwhile “rejected participation in Monday’s session, stressing that the appointment of a new army chief, chief of staff and military council should take place through roaming decrees signed by all ministers, not through a Cabinet session, expressing concerns that (General Joseph Aoun’s) retirement could be postponed regardless of the defense minister’s approval,” the al-Liwaa daily reported.

An Israeli drone fired two missiles at dawn Saturday at an aluminum factory on the Toul-Kfour road in south Lebanon, targeting the heart of the Nabatieh governorate for the first time since the 2006 war, the National News Agency said.

The strike fully burned the factory and its equipment, NNA added.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday alleged that Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is “doing the impossible and crossing all red lines and constitutional limits” in order to “get rid of General Joseph Aoun in the army chief post for purely personal and opportunist considerations.”

“According to the available information, he is working night and day to appoint a new army commander. Despite our respect for all the candidates proposed for this post, he has totally disregarded everything that he had stated in terms of rejecting the ministerial decrees that have been issued over the past year because they encroach on the president’s jurisdiction,” Geagea said.

There are currently three candidates for the army chief post but one of them has the highest chances, a media report said on Friday.

“His appointment has been settled in principle and he enjoys the acceptance of all political parties and has close ties to foreign forces,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted informed sources as saying.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Friday said he rejects “the unjust campaigns against His Eminence, Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, over his honest calls for supporting the displaced Lebanese.”

“His Eminence’s call for supporting the displaced expresses a unifying national stance,” Berri said in a statement.

Israeli air strikes killed two pro-Iranian fighters near the Syrian capital Damascus early on Friday during raids targeting a Hezbollah arms depot and other sites near Syria's capital, a war monitor said.

Israel has hit targets in Syria several times in the past weeks as regional tensions rise over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has become more inclined to accept the choice of naming a new army commander, a move that the Free Patriotic Movement is insisting on, the pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

Hezbollah “is not opposed to the appointment of a new army chief should there be consensus over the name,” the daily added.

Israeli warplanes and artillery bombed Friday the outskirts of the Lebanese border towns of al-Jebbayn, al-Labbouneh, Aitaroun, Yarine, Dhaira, Mays al-Jabal, Blida Houla, Tayr Harfa, Aita al-Shaab, Rab Tlatine, al-Taybe, Rmeish, and Wadi Mozlem.

Israel had shelled overnight with heavy and flare shells al-Naqoura, Blida, al-Khiam, Borj al-Moulouk, Kfarshouba, and Kfarhamam.

Former top Lebanese security official Abbas Ibrahim who has served as a conduit between the United States and Hezbollah has said that at this stage the Lebanese militant group is not interested in widening its limited cross-border conflict with Israel.

Ibrahim, the former head of Lebanon’s General Security, said that as long as Hamas is able to confront the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, “the situation will remain at the current level of tension” on the Lebanese front.

Ex-president Michel Aoun “personally intervened” overnight to block a possible extension of Army chief Joseph Aoun’s term in Thursday’s Cabinet session, MTV quoted sources as saying.

“Over my dead body,” the former president reportedly told close associates.