Efforts are ongoing to secure the success of the January 9 presidential election session, Speaker Nabih Berri said.

Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel said Friday that Hezbollah should know that the Lebanese will not accept to stay "under its guardianship" or to be "second-degree citizens" anymore.

"We are neither willing to take revenge nor to isolate or exclude anyone," he said, talking about Hezbollah, Amal, and their supporters.

Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has announced along with the Democratic Gathering bloc that they would endorse Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun in a presidential vote scheduled for January 9.

The bloc and Jumblat were the first to announce their official candidate. But why did Jumblat decide to support Aoun?

Israeli army forces withdrew Friday from the southern town of Bani Hayyan two days after invading it, media reports said.

The Israeli army withdrew from the town towards Markaba, after its forces carried out bulldozing and detonations of houses and roads.

The car of 20-year-old man Mahdi Shammout was found Friday in the Wadi al-Hujeir area in south Lebanon after contact was lost with him on Thursday, al-Jadeed TV said.

The military leader of the Islamist-led rebels who ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who now prefers to use his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa, has reassured the Lebanese about the future of relations between the two countries.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert on Friday issued an end of year message for the Lebanese.

“2024 was, to put it mildly, an exceptionally difficult year for Lebanon. Far too many lives were lost, devastated, and disrupted. The conflict (between Israel and Hezbollah), which inflicted untold suffering and trauma, also left great destruction. And certainly, the arduous process of healing, picking up the pieces, and rebuilding has only just begun,” Hennis-Plasschaert said.

The Syrian Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, uncovered at least 21 corpses as well as incomplete human remains on Wednesday in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of the capital Damascus.

The discovery was made at a site previously used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, both allies of deposed President Bashar Assad during the country’s civil war. The site included a field kitchen, a drugstore and a morgue, according to Ammar al-Salmo, an official with the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operated in areas that were controlled by the opposition.

Four Israeli civilians who “illegally entered Lebanon” were detained on Thursday afternoon, Israeli police said.

The head of the Lebanese Forces' Media and Communication Department, Charles Jabbour, has warned Hezbollah that is has reached a "dead end" and that it is facing "major existential threats" in light of its latest war with Israel and the rise of a new regime in Syria.