President Joseph Aoun stressed Monday the need that Lebanon “meet the Arab and international interest in the country through boosting the confidence restoration steps.”

A Syrian delegation will visit Lebanon this week to prepare for a high-level meeting between Lebanese and Syrian officials, media reports said.
Pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper reported Monday that a committee from the Syrian ministries of foreign affairs, interior, and justice, will visit Beirut next Thursday to arrange for the official meeting.

Brig. Gen. Iraj Masjedi, the assistant commander of Iran’s Quds Force for coordination affairs, announced Monday that “the Hezbollah disarmament plan in Lebanon is an American-Zionist plan that will never be implemented.”
Recent and similar statements by the same official and by other Iranian officials had prompted Lebanese authorities to strongly condemn “interference” in Lebanon’s domestic affairs.

The Lebanese Army has not asked for an extension of the deadline set by the Lebanese government for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the other armed groups in the country, a Lebanese military source said.
“The army’s plan for the removal of Hezbollah’s arms has become almost ready,” the source told Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel.

Hezbollah and Amal called off Monday a rally they had called for in protest at the government's decision to disarm Hezbollah by the year end.
The workers' departments of Hezbollah and Amal had called for a rally Wednesday in Riad al-Solh.

An Israeli drone strike that targeted a car on the Tebnine road in south Lebanon killed one person, the health ministry said Monday.
Another drone strike had earlier targeted a car in Sarbine, causing no casualties. Media reports said the same car was later targeted in Tebnine as the first strike failed to kill the driver.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said Israel was ready to back Lebanon's efforts to disarm Hezbollah and offered "a phased" pullout of its troops if Lebanon followed through with plans to seize the group's weapons.
"Israel stands ready to support Lebanon in its efforts to disarm Hezbollah and to work together towards a more secure and stable future for both nations," said Netanyahu, according to a statement released by his office.

The United Nations Security Council will vote Monday on the future of the blue helmet peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon that has faced U.S. and Israeli opposition.
The Council will vote on a French-drafted compromise that would keep the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed in 1978 to separate Israel and Lebanon, in place for one more year while it prepares to withdraw.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack arrived in Israel and met on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the Trump administration’s request that Israel restrain its strikes in Lebanon, as well as about the negotiations with Syria, three Israeli and U.S. sources told U.S. news portal Axios.

President Joseph Aoun has said that Lebanon is still awaiting “the final Israeli response” to the Lebanese paper that was carried to Israel by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack.
