Lebanon on Sunday recorded eighteen more COVID-19 cases and another death, the Health Ministry said.

The cases raise the country’s tally to 1,873 and the fatality takes the death toll to 36. The number of recoveries has meanwhile reached 1,311.

Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel on Sunday noted that improving Lebanon’s strained ties with Arab countries and the West could be an alternative to the floundering negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

“But is the Lebanese state capable of visiting Washington, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Europe?” Gemayel lamented in an interview with Radio Orient.

Parties represented in the government have recently talked to ex-PM Saad Hariri about the possibility of forming a “national unity government,” ex-MP Mustafa Alloush confirmed on Sunday.

“We are against the return of Hariri or any figure representing al-Mustaqbal Movement (to the premier post) without securing choices that at least begin with returning to the Baabda Declaration and reforming the electricity sector,” Alloush, who is a member of Mustaqbal’s politburo, said in an interview with al-Jadeed TV.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called on President Michel Aoun to break what he called the siege that is imposed on Lebanese “legitimacy” and the country’s “free national decision.”

In his Sunday Mass sermon, al-Rahi also urged friendly nations to “scramble to rescue Lebanon, the same as they used to do whenever it faces a threat.”

Another suicide took place on Saturday in the Metn area of Baabdat when a man plunged to his death from the balcony of his household, the Voice of Lebanon (93.3) radio station reported.

A number of protesters gathered outside the embassy of the United States in Awkar on Saturday demanding the implementation of UN Resolution 1559, as army and security forces deployed in the area and blocked the road leading to the embassy with barbed wire, said the National News Agency.

The Cabinet is set to meet next week at Baabda to tackle several pressing issues listed on the agenda including the electricity file, amid fears the country would plunge in darkness over a fuel shortage.

President of the Syndicate of Hotel Owners in Lebanon, Pierre Achkar said on Saturday that tourism institutions in Lebanon decided to shut down in September if the economic crisis continues to deteriorate.

An Istanbul court ordered the release of five suspects after the trial began Friday into the audacious escape of former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn from Japan to Lebanon via Istanbul in December, local media reported.

Lebanese in several regions around the country rushed on kerosene and candles fearing that a shortage in fuel oil plunges the country in total darkness.