The black market dollar exchange rate witnessed a dramatic drop around noon Tuesday after Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh announced that banks will start selling dollars to the public at a Sayrafa platform rate of LBP 38,000.

“Throughout the three-day holidays period, the U.S. dollar exchange rate surged by LBP 2,000 on the parallel market due to speculation operations and the smuggling of dollars to abroad. This hike caused inflation on the markets, which harmed the Lebanese citizen seeing as prices in Lebanon are linked to the dollar exchange rate,” Salameh said in a statement.

Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa has wished former president Michel Aoun a merry Christmas on behalf of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Safa told the OTV that there is no divorce between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.

Unknown assailants have hurled a Molotov cocktail bomb overnight at al-Jadeed TV building in Wata el-Mousaitbeh, the media outlet said.

Al-Jadeed reported Tuesday that the bomb self-extinguished before reaching the building and that security forces have launched an investigation into the incident.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently met with Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh and caretaker PM Najib Mikati despite the political campaigns he has waged against them in recent weeks, a media report said on Monday.

Hezbollah has handed over a man suspected of killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper earlier this month, a security official told AFP.

Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three others injured on December 14 when their U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicle was attacked near the village of al-Aqbiyeh in the country's south, a stronghold of Hezbollah.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Sunday said that the FPM will launch a "complete" political initiative within two weeks.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday lamented that “arrogance is preventing politicians from coming together and holding dialogue to exit the presidential election crisis.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Saturday lamented that “all political indications confirm the presence of a plot against Lebanon aimed at causing presidential vacuum accompanied by a constitutional vacuum, which is more and more complicating the election of a president.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil met Friday evening with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, following political clashes and a lengthy break in ties between the two parties.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Antonio Tajani on Friday met in Beirut with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

In his talks with Mikati, Tajani demonstrated the relations between Lebanon and Italy on the various levels, the situation in Lebanon, and the ongoing failure to elect a new president, state-run National News Agency said.