Lebanese troops carried out house raids following renewed shooting in Fanar Thursday morning, the state-run National News Agency said.

It said the crackle of machine gun fire was heard in Zoaiteriya neighborhood in the northern Metn area of Fanar.

MP Michel Murr stressed Wednesday the importance of granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon their rights, but said a draft law on the matter cannot be submitted as an urgent bill.

He commented on Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat's recent statements on the issue by saying: "He has the right to act in whatever way he wants when he presented his proposal to parliament, perhaps it's because he's been practicing politics for a long time."

The United States on Wednesday urged "all those wishing to deliver goods to do so through established channels so that their cargo can be inspected and transferred via land crossings into Gaza."

"As we continue to make clear to involved parties, mechanisms exist for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has reportedly warned his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman from the dangers of international pressure to demarcate the border between the two countries while expressing readiness to start demarcation at sea.

Well-informed sources told As Safir newspaper in remarks published Thursday that Suleiman stressed during talks with Assad in Damascus on Tuesday on the need to demarcate the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led a chorus of defiant Iranian criticism of new U.N. sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic on Wednesday, saying they deserved to be "thrown in the trash bin."

"These resolutions are not worth a dime for the Iranian nation," he said.

Hizbullah blasted Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman for a testimony in which he said Hizbullah is the most technically-capable terrorist group in the world.

Feltman "plays the role of an Israeli official in America," Hizbullah said in a statement.

Cabinet clearly believed that 50/50 was the fair way to get with less fuss over the issue of voting against or abstain from voting for new U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran.

So a decision not to side with either political camp was taken after Cabinet ministers were equally divided between voting against the U.N. proposal and abstaining from the vote.

Secondary public school teachers have suspended their boycott of corrections of this month's official tests until Saturday.

The decision came after coordination among secondary public school teachers and the Central Council of Associations of public school teachers.

Speaker Nabih Berri slammed the Lebanese government's "no decision" on U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran, saying Lebanon should have voted against the draft resolution.

"I still insist on my position that I announced at Baabda palace that Lebanon should have voted against sanctions on Iran, which is a friendly country that has stood next to Lebanon," Berri told An Nahar daily in remarks published Thursday.

Hizbullah MP Hussein Moussawi on Wednesday saluted veteran U.S. reporter Helen Thomas' "courage" for her comments against Israel, which sparked a furor Washington and forced her to retire.

"Respected American journalist Helen Thomas' answer shows ... a courageous, bold, honest and free opinion which expresses what people across the globe believe: that Israel is a racist state of murderers and thugs," Moussawi said in a statement.