Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Tuesday chaired a Grand Serail meeting dedicated to studying the mechanism of distributing fuel in the crisis-hit country.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan carried out on Monday an inspection tour of warehouses that store medicines and infant milk in many Lebanese regions.

The tour aimed to monitor the selling and distribution of medicines in light of the companies’ remittances received by the Ministry of Health from the Central Bank.

International pressure managed to achieve major progress over the past hours in Lebanon’s cabinet formation process, resolving a host of reservations and mutual conditions, media reports said.

The fate of the cabinet formation process will become clear at the end of the week and the atmosphere is leaning to positivity, sources close to PM-designate Najib Miqati said.

Cyprus on Monday sent 88 Syrian migrants back to Lebanon after they tried to reach the eastern Mediterranean island nation on two boats.

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris told The Associated Press that rescue crews continue to search for one of five men who jumped overboard after police vessels intercepted their boat off Cyprus' eastern coast. Nouris said police picked up four men, but the fifth, who was wearing a mask, flippers and a life preserver, managed to swim away.

Lebanon's government agreed Monday to pay tens of thousands of poor families cash assistance in U.S. dollars from a World Bank loan as the country's economic crisis deepens.

The decision comes as Lebanon is expected to end subsidies for fuel by the end of next month, a move that is expected to lead to sharp increases in prices of almost all products.

Students in Lebanon will return to the classroom starting next month, the education minister said Monday, amid fears an accelerating economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic would prevent schools from reopening.

Rights groups have decried an "education catastrophe", with more than a million children in Lebanon out of school since the country's Covid-19 outbreak began in February last year.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday ridiculed Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s declared plans for bringing fuel ships from Iran.

“As for Sayyed Hassan’s promised ship, it is nothing but a silly little joke amid the tragedy that we are living,” Geagea said in a statement.

President Michel Aoun on Monday hoped the coming days “will carry positive developments regarding the formation of the government.”

He added that the formation of a new cabinet “would launch a recovery workshop at the various levels.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea admits the country has hit rock bottom amid its economic downturn but has cautioned against drawing parallels to the civil war era.

“Lebanon is at the bottom now. You can see the miserable state of the economy and the daily, unbearable life struggles,” Geagea said in an English-language interview with the Emirati newspaper The National.