Head of the Kataeb Party MP Sami Gemayel emphasized on Sunday the importance of the municipal elections in catering to the needs of the people, saying that his party chose not join political alliances.

He remarked after casting his vote: “We do not have any political alignments in the polls.”

A dispute erupted on Sunday between supporters of rival candidates in the Keserouan town of Afqa during the municipal polls, reported the National News Agency.

The dispute spiraled into a scuffle between Hizbullah and AMAL supporters.

The residents of the southern border region of al-Arida staged a protest on Sunday against the army's arrest of two locals, reported the National News Agency.

The demonstrators briefly blocked the international highway in the area as part of their protest.

A hand grenade was discovered on Sunday morning at a polling station in the city of Chehime in the Chouf district.

The grenade, which was not set to take off, was discovered at the entrance of a school in Chehime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights rejected Hizbullah's statement on the assassination of its prominent commander Mustapha Badreddine, refuting its accusation that “takfiri” groups had killed him in the Syrian capital Damascus.

It quoted reliable Islamic sources and others from the Syrian regime as saying that no rocket was fired at Damascus international airport or its vicinity in the past few days.

The failure of the main Christian parties of the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement to reach an alliance in the Mount Lebanon elections is indicative of the tensions in the country, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Sunday.

Political sources noted that the lack of coherent alliance among the parties is a sign that “none of them have a political or municipal agenda given the sectarian tensions in the country.”

The second round of Lebanon's municipal elections are set to kick off in Mount Lebanon on Sunday following mostly successful polls held a week earlier in the capital Beirut and in the Bekaa and Baalbek-al-Hermel district.

The elections are the first vote of any kind in Lebanon since the last municipal polls in 2010.

Hizbullah party stated that takfiri groups were responsible for killing the party's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine in Syria in an artillery attack, the party's al-Manar TV said on Saturday.

“An investigation has shown that the blast that targeted one of our positions near the Damascus international airport that led to the martyrdom of the brother commander Mustafa Badreddine was caused by artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri (Sunni extremist) groups present in that region,” a Hizbullah statement said.

The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) is set to hold a special meeting on Saturday to discuss the U.S. law that targets the sources of funding of Hizbullah which triggered dismay among the party's officials.

The meeting will be chaired by the ABL chief Joseph Tarabay and comes after Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc criticized the central bank for saying it would abide by a U.S. law that came into effect last month and which the party's lawmakers said violates Lebanon's sovereignty.

Lebanon is set to receive later in May several delegations from Europe, Argentine and the United States, mainly the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

Glaser is expected to arrive on the 23 of May with a detailed file on the application of the U.S. law that targets the sources of funding of Hizbullah officials and institutions.