MP Alain Aoun of the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc has stressed that the FPM will not engage in “any deals or bargains,” such as attending a parliamentary session for referring the accused ministers in the port case to the Higher Council for Trial of Ministers and Presidents in return for the resumption of Cabinet sessions.

“As for the condition that the (Shiite) duo is placing to return to Cabinet, its key is in the hands of the judiciary or the constitution, and we’re not an obstacle in the way of any of them,” Aoun said in an interview with the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper published Sunday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has warned that failing to take swift action to address Lebanon’s accumulating crises would mean that the country will head to a “worse” situation.

“The next week will be decisive in clarifying the course of things,” Berri told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published Sunday.

The White House has said that Washington does not want Lebanon to become a “failed state,” while noting that it has used “a combination of carrots and sticks” in its approach towards the country.

“One thing we want to try to make sure is that we don’t have any more failed states in the Middle East region. Failed states open vacuums, and those vacuums are not filled by moderates, they’re filled by extremist actors on all sides and become kind of proxy fights by regional powers,” a senior administration official told journalists in a year-end discussion on the Middle East.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has addressed a video message to the "people of Lebanon" on the eve of his visit to the country which will begin on Sunday.

Below is the full transcript of the message as received from the U.N.:

Higher Judicial Council chief Judge Suheil Abboud on Friday announced that “this is the era of resilience” and “consolidating the independence of the judicial authority.”

Abboud voiced his remarks during a ceremony to swear in 33 judges who graduated from the Institute of Judicial Studies.

One in two children in Lebanon is at serious risk of physical, emotional, or sexual violence, as families struggle to cope in the country’s deepening crisis, according to a new report from UNICEF.

‘Violent beginnings: Children growing up in Lebanon’s crisis’ report also details that around 1.8 million children (more than 80 per cent) are now experiencing multidimensional poverty – up from around 900,000 in 2019 - and risk being forced into abuses such as child labor or child marriage to help their families make ends meet.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Friday warned that “any call for holding a Cabinet session without resolving the current crisis would be considered a challenge by a Lebanese component and might be followed by resignations from the government.”

“That’s why I will not subject the government to any harm,” Miqati added, in an interview with a delegation from the Editors Syndicate.

Attorney General Judge Ghassan Khoury filed Friday a lawsuit before the Court of Cassation against Judge Randa Kfoury and the counselors of the Court's Sixth Chamber to “rectify the grave error they did” by dismissing him from the Beirut port blast case.

Khoury requested the annulment of the decision “because of the grave errors it contains,” saying that “if adopted, it will lead to the disruption of the work of the Public Prosecutions all over Lebanon.”

The presence of Hizbullah in the Lebanese government “continues to impede effective government action against terrorist incidents associated with Hizbullah,” the U.S. State Department said in its annual report on terrorism.

“For instance, despite repeated requests by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to gain access to private properties in southern Lebanon -- from which Hizbullah is suspected to have dug cross-border tunnels into Israel or housed or manufactured weapons -- the Government of Lebanon declined to permit UNIFIL to investigate these areas,” the report adds.

Hizbullah MP Ali al-Mekdad said that the U.S. embassy is “steering” the work of lead investigator into the Beirut port blast Judge Tarek Bitar.

“I can’t be naive and wait for Bitar’s indictment, and then defend myself,” Mekdad said in a televised interview.