Israel's environment ministry announced Wednesday it will not renew the license of an ammonia container in the port city of Haifa as it poses a potentially deadly threat to residents.

The container, which holds 12,000 tons of the toxic, corrosive liquid, puts the public "at a risk we cannot accept," the ministry said in a statement.

A Lebanese national and U.S. permanent resident sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran has confessed that he had tried to "encourage decadence" in the Iranian society, an Iranian semi-official news agency has quoted a Revolutionary Guard commander as saying.

Speaker Nabih Berri held talks Wednesday in Tehran with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

Israeli warplanes struck Hizbullah and Syrian army targets in a number of hills in the Syria-Lebanon border region at dawn Wednesday, media reports said, drawing a rebuttal from Hizbullah sources.

A delegation from Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc held talks Wednesday with President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace.

President Michel Aoun might call for a national dialogue among the leaders of the political parties in Baabda or he might agree with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on holding consecutive cabinet sessions, with the aim of reaching consensus over a new electoral law before the March 21 deadline, a media report said on Wednesday.

The Free Patriotic Movement has accused its partner in the presidential settlement, al-Mustaqbal Movement, of wasting time in the electoral law deliberations in order to postpone the parliamentary elections, a media report said on Wednesday.

A joint delegation from the Progressive Socialist Party and the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc held talks Tuesday in Khalde with Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan.

The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc on Tuesday reiterated its rejection of the controversial 1960 electoral law, noting that it violates the 1989 Taef Accord, while hinting that President Michel Aoun will not sign a decree calling for parliamentary elections in May 2017.

British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter on Tuesday announced £2.5 million ($3.2 million) towards a new International Research Center (IRC) in Lebanon, the British Embassy said in a statement.