Speaker Nabih Berri was “dismayed” by the latest clashes on the Lebanese-Syrian border, fearing that they “may turn into a sectarian war, whereas they are a conflict over smuggling routes in the first place,” a media report said.

The U.S., influential Western countries and most Arab nations have said that there will no funds for reconstructing the Israeli-destroyed areas in Lebanon amid the presence of “arms outside the state’s arms,” in reference to Hezbollah’s weapons, a media report said.

Armed forces belonging to Syria’s new administration made a five-kilometer incursion at 2am Tuesday into the Lebanese part of the border town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali and continued their advance in the morning, the town’s Lebanese mayor Ali Nassereddine said.

A Lebanese professor is back in her home country after she was expelled from the United States for attending the funeral of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a trip to Beirut, her family told AFP Tuesday.

Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at the Ivy League Brown University, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston and deported the following day, US media reported.

Cautious calm was on Tuesday engulfing the al-Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp and the neighboring northern town of Wadi al-Nahleh near Tripoli following overnight clashes that lasted until dawn, the National News Agency said.

Cabinet failed Monday to approve a mechanism for administrative appointments, deciding to continue discussions in Thursday’s session, which had been dedicated to naming a new central bank governor, a media report said.

“Cautious optimism, Madam President, is the flavor of the day” -- these were the words of the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who briefed the United Nations Security Council on the implementation of resolution 1701. She used them to synopsize the recent government formation process in Lebanon, welcoming both the "promising ministerial agenda" adopted, while noting that Lebanon’s protracted leadership vacuum had left the country’s new administration with just over one year to tackle a series of daunting challenges.

Speaking alongside Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the Special Coordinator provided the Council with an overview of the security situation in the country. While noting that the cessation of hostilities continued to hold, she added that this did not mean that all military activity on Lebanese territory had ceased.

U.S. Homeland Security officials said that a doctor from Lebanon who was deported over the weekend despite having a U.S. visa "openly admitted" to supporting slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and attending his funeral.

The department's statement, posted on social media, provides a possible explanation for Dr. Rasha Alawieh's deportation, which has sparked widespread alarm in the U.S., especially after a federal judge ordered that she not be removed until a hearing could be held. Government lawyers have said customs officials did not get word until after Alawieh was sent back to Lebanon.

The Lebanese health ministry says at least seven people were killed and 52 wounded in clashes on the border with Syria that erupted on Sunday night.

Israeli airstrikes overnight targeted three areas in West Bekaa and the outskirts of Deir Mimas in the South.

The Israeli military said it "struck Hezbollah military sites in which Hezbollah terrorists and weapons were identified."