Lebanon handed over to Italy on Thursday morning a suspected Italian drug dealer arrested last month north of Beirut, judicial officials said.

Bartolo Bruzzaniti was flown to Italy on a private jet that took off from Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The head of the lawsuits dept. at the Justice Ministry, Judge Hilana Iskandar, has filed an appeal against a decision by Beirut’s acting First Examining Magistrate Charbel Abou Samra that had allowed ex-Central Bank chief Riad Salameh to walk free following interrogation.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday lashed out at the Palestinian factions over the fighting that has been raging since Saturday at the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp.

Banks from four Arab countries are interested in investing in Lebanon's struggling banking sector, which was hard-hit by the small nation's three-year economic meltdown, a top Arab banker said Thursday.

Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in its short and troubled history that has skyrocketed poverty and inflation, and crippled its bloated public sector and infrastructure.

A cautious calm returned to Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian camp in south Lebanon Thursday after a night of renewed clashes.

Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, which is home to about 50,000 people, has been racked since Sunday by fierce battles between President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and Islamist groups Jund al Sham and Shabab al Muslim.

Dialogue between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement has made progress on the files of decentralization and the trust fund and will move next week to the file of the presidency, a media report said.

Official political sources have cast doubt on the success chances of the dialogue that French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian has called for in a bid to break the presidential deadlock.

The Central bank is inclined to stop funding the state completely as of Monday, MTV said, after the government and parliament failed to pass a law that would allow the government to borrow foreign currency from the central bank.

First central bank vice-governor Wassim Mansouri, who took over as BDL's acting governor on Tuesday, had urged parliament and the government to cooperate in order to legalize spending during a transitional period before the central bank stops funding the state completely.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has contacted Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker PM Najib Mikati, urging them to exert efforts to halt the deadly clashes that have been raging for six days at the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has clarified that no Cabinet session will be held at the summer seat of the Maronite patriarchate in Diman but rather a ministerial meeting.