Authorities are investigating the imposter who posed as a Saudi prince, extorting several politicians with the help of a religious figure, a judicial official said.

A former prime minister and several other politicians, most of them Sunni Muslim, were caught up in the scandal that exposed the country’s deep-rooted corruption.

Given President Joseph Aoun's insistence on holding the parliamentary elections on time, sources have told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper that he is seeking a practical solution that would suspend the sixteenth electoral district, designated for expatriate representation with six seats, while allowing for a limited postponement of the elections until mid-summer.

According to this solution, expatriates would be able to vote upon their return to Lebanon, via temporary ballot boxes at Beirut’s airport, starting at the beginning of the summer holiday and without being bound by the official election date, the daily said.

The General Directorate of State Security on Wednesday announced the arrest of a Syrian national who had conducted “deals” with Israel.

"As part of efforts to combat networks collaborating with the Israeli enemy, the Southern Regional Directorate of the General Directorate of State Security arrested a Syrian national for conducting deals with the Israeli enemy,” it said in a statement.

The accusatory body overseeing the lawsuit against Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar on Wednesday issued a ruling upholding the dismissal of the case previously made by Judge Habib Rizkallah.

The chamber, headed by Judge Elias Eid and including advisors Pierre Francis and Rabih Houssami, based its decision on the reasoning provided by Rizkallah while adding its own justification.

Israeli drones dropped Wednesday stun grenades near Ayta al-Shaab's cemetery in south Lebanon as the border village prepared to burry a man killed two days ago by Israeli gunfire.

The Israeli army alleged he was a Hezbollah member who "gathered intelligence on (Israeli) troops and operated to rehabilitate Hezbollah’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon".

Mourners in southern Lebanon on Tuesday buried a father and his young son killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a Hezbollah member.

Hassan Jaber, a police officer, and his child, Ali, were on foot when the strike on Monday hit a passing car in the center of their town, Yanouh, relatives said. The health ministry said the boy was 3 years old. Both were killed at the scene along with the car driver, Ahmad Salami, who the Israeli military said in a statement was a Hezbollah artillery official.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said Tuesday that it "took action to disrupt two key mechanisms Hezbollah uses to sustain its economic stability: revenue generation in coordination with the Iranian regime and exploitation of Lebanon’s informal financial sector."

Lebanon and Jordan are seeking a solution with Syria after the latter barred foreign trucks from entering its territory, officials from both countries told AFP on Tuesday.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem stressed Tuesday that "no one can dictate to Lebanon that it harm its defense capabilities," warning that "disarmament serves the interests of Israel and America, not the state."

He added: "If the Lebanese state wants to strengthen itself and build a future for our generations, it needs the resistance to support it, because it possesses experience and will. This places a responsibility on the state to see how the resistance can stand alongside it and how it can benefit from its capabilities."

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency has thwarted the activities of a “terrorist cell” operating in the occupied West Bank whose members were “directed by operatives in Lebanon,” Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Tuesday.

The Lebanon-based operatives, Mujahed Dahsha and Moussa Abou Seif, “instructed members to photograph a town in the Samaria area (West Bank) and conduct shooting drills in preparation for a planned attack,” Adraee said.