Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is reportedly exerting efforts to expand the “centrist” bloc in the country that mainly includes President Michel Suleiman and Premier-designate Najib Miqati and Jumblat.

An Nahar newspaper reported that the PSP leader invited Phalange party leader Amin Gemayel to dinner at his residence in Clemenceau on Thursday in his ongoing efforts to expand the “centrist force” in the country.

Israeli soldiers on Thursday put up new barbed wire on the border with Lebanon, three days ahead of a planned Palestinian march, a Lebanese security official said.

An Agence France Presse journalist at the scene saw the soldiers adding the wire on top of a fence already in place in the Adaisseh-Kfarkila sector facing the Israeli town of Metulla.

Deputy Speaker Farid Makari and some members of the Parliament Bureau Committee, MP Ahmed Fatfat, Marwan Hamadeh, Antoine Zahra, and Serge Toursakissian condemned on Thursday Speaker Nabih Berri’s decision to hold a parliament session on June 8, labeling it as “a blow to democratic parliamentary practices in Lebanon.”

They said in a statement: “His decision violates the privileges of the committee and parliament’s internal system in that he devised next week’s schedule by himself.”

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams stressed on Thursday the urgent need to form a cabinet that can address challenges at the security level.

“Incidents such as the attack on UNIFIL highlight the urgent need for a government in Lebanon that can address challenges at the security level,” Williams said about the roadside bomb that targeted U.N. peacekeepers in the south last Friday.

Syria was likely behind the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni in 2005, which was aimed at silencing his caustic remarks against the regime of President Bashar Assad, stated a leaked U.S. Embassy cable dated December 19, 2005, published exclusively in al-Jumhuriya newspaper on Wednesday.

The WikiLeaks cable added that the assassination was also a message to the Lebanese opposition that “no one can protect them.”

The United States has informed parties involved in the formation of the government that it had “vetoed” giving Hizbullah and its allies four main portfolios, al-Liwaa daily reported Thursday.

The newspaper said that the vetoed ministries include the interior, defense, justice and telecommunications portfolios.

The Maronite meeting at Bkirki stressed on Thursday the need to hold future meetings to continue discussions over how to “maintain Lebanon as an example for democracy and freedom.”

An agreement was reached to form a follow up committee to monitor the cooperation between them, announced Bishop Samir Mazloum who read the summit’s closing statement.

The Lebanese army has declared Fatima Gate and the barbed-wire fence along the southern border with Israel as a closed military zone.

A rally is expected to be staged on Sunday in commemoration of the Naksa Day to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Mideast war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and Golan Heights.

U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon has voiced hope that Italy will not draw down its peacekeeping force in Lebanon in the wake of the recent attack on its contingent in the south.

"I hope that Italy will maintain the current levels of its Lebanon contingent, in spite of the tragic attack on the Italian UNIFIL convoy," Ban told ANSA news agency on Wednesday.

Head of the National Struggle Front bloc Walid Jumblat reportedly opposes a planned parliamentary session aimed at renewing the mandate of the Central Bank governor and might boycott the meeting on June 8.

Jumblat’s sources told As Safir daily on Thursday that the Druze leader prefers to resort to a “mobile draft-law” to renew Riyad Salameh’s mandate rather than holding a session amid the absence of a government.