William Noun and Maria Fares met during a moment of grief two years ago after each of them lost a sibling in Beirut's massive port blast. Their shared pain developed into a bittersweet love story: Earlier this month Noun proposed to Fares and she said yes.

Noun's late brother, Joe, and Fares' late sister, Sahar, were both firefighters who rushed to the port on the evening of Aug. 4, 2020 after a fire broke out in one of the warehouses. Sahar Fares was a paramedic with the force.

An Irish member of the U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring south Lebanon near the Israeli border was killed and three wounded after their convoy came under fire, U.N. and Irish sources said Thursday.

The British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamish Cowell, has announced a £13 million commitment to “support the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) resilience from 2022 till 2025 in a Memorandum of Understanding signed with LAF Commander in Chief General Joseph Aoun,” the British embassy said.

Cowell, with the U.S. Ambassador, Dorothy Shea, and the Canadian Ambassador, Stephanie McCollum, met General Aoun during the High Level Steering Committee to discuss security on the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will meet with ex-president Michel Aoun and Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil upon the latter’s return from Qatar, informed ministerial sources said.

The meeting will likely be held within a week to “put an end to the crisis between the two parties,” the sources told ad-Diyar newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

Israeli army chief Aviv Kohavi on Wednesday announced that Israel has prevented Iran from deploying hundreds of missiles in Lebanon and Syria, while announcing that Israel was behind a Nov. 8 attack on an Iranian convoy that had entered Syria from Iraq.

"As a result of many years of activity, the Iranian vision -- which was supposed to include at this time hundreds of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles in the Syrian and Lebanese arenas – has been completely disrupted,” Kohavi said.

The latest “Israeli claims” that Hezbollah might bring in arms through Beirut airport are laughable and baseless, sources close to Hezbollah have said.

“Hezbollah has already transferred the precision missiles and their requirements by land and the mission has been accomplished, as had been declared by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, despite the continuous Israeli attacks and surveillance,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met Wednesday with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh.

After the meeting, Bou Saab said that it is not likely for a dialogue to be held before the end of the year.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Wednesday denied a media report claiming that he is seeking anew to convene the caretaker cabinet, following the latest session that sparked political and sectarian tensions in the country.

Describing the report published in al-Akhbar newspaper as “fabricated,” Mikati’s press office said the premier does not intend to convene the caretaker cabinet anytime soon.

The Free Patriotic Movement had not taken a final decision over attending a dialogue that Speaker Nabih Berri had suggested as a replacement to Thursday's presidential election session, FPM sources said Wednesday.

The sources told al-Jadeed that FPM chief Jebran Bassil had a condition, to address the dispute over the latest cabinet session.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said Wednesday that "we accept transcontinental dialogue but we reject it at home."

In a statement on social media, Jumblat said that we accept dialogue across continents and through football, but not in Lebanon.