Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday expressed sympathy with “all those who were wounded in the Beirut port blast on August 4,” 2020, lamenting that “from the very first moment after the port explosion, some malicious TV stations said that Hezbollah was behind blowing up the port.”

“Those who blocked the truth in the port blast case are the ones who politicized this case. The real reason behind the loss of the truth in the Beirut port explosion is some parties’ linking of the case to regional events,” Nasrallah added, in a televised address commemorating late Shiite cleric Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Thursday presided over a mass for the victims and wounded of the Beirut port blast, on the eve of the third anniversary of the tragedy.

“The truth that they are trying to conceal by impeding the investigations of the investigative judge for the past three years is related to the identity of those responsible for the bombing and for storing ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port,” al-Rahi said.

The International Support Group for Lebanon has marked the third anniversary of the catastrophic explosion at the Port of Beirut on 4 August 2020 by expressing solidarity with the families of the victims and with those whose lives, homes, and livelihoods were “severely affected by this tragic event.”

“Three years since this deadly explosion left over 220 people dead, and many thousands injured and rendered homeless, the families of the victims and the Lebanese people are left wanting for truth, justice and accountability,” the ISG said in a statement.

Lebanon handed over to Italy on Thursday morning a suspected Italian drug dealer arrested last month north of Beirut, judicial officials said.

Bartolo Bruzzaniti was flown to Italy on a private jet that took off from Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The head of the lawsuits dept. at the Justice Ministry, Judge Hilana Iskandar, has filed an appeal against a decision by Beirut’s acting First Examining Magistrate Charbel Abou Samra that had allowed ex-Central Bank chief Riad Salameh to walk free following interrogation.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday lashed out at the Palestinian factions over the fighting that has been raging since Saturday at the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp.

Banks from four Arab countries are interested in investing in Lebanon's struggling banking sector, which was hard-hit by the small nation's three-year economic meltdown, a top Arab banker said Thursday.

Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in its short and troubled history that has skyrocketed poverty and inflation, and crippled its bloated public sector and infrastructure.

A cautious calm returned to Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian camp in south Lebanon Thursday after a night of renewed clashes.

Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, which is home to about 50,000 people, has been racked since Sunday by fierce battles between President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and Islamist groups Jund al Sham and Shabab al Muslim.

Dialogue between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement has made progress on the files of decentralization and the trust fund and will move next week to the file of the presidency, a media report said.

Official political sources have cast doubt on the success chances of the dialogue that French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian has called for in a bid to break the presidential deadlock.