Cabinet on Thursday approved a mechanism for administrative appointments, as Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that Lebanon’s new authorities are seeking “an upright and effective state administration that protects the citizen.”

Hezbollah MP Ibrahim al-Moussawi on Thursday blasted Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji, who is close to the Lebanese Forces, for “his insistence to accuse Hezbollah of disavowing the ceasefire agreement with the Israeli enemy.”

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have received phone calls from Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who “stressed the need to form civilian committees to negotiate with Israel,” Al-Jadeed TV has reported.

Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.

Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order.

MP Hussein al-Hajj Hassan of the Loyalty to Resistance bloc has noted that Hezbollah “considers that the responsibility for addressing and confronting what happened on the Lebanese-Syrian border falls on the Lebanese state and all its pillars and institutions.”

“Hezbollah, as part of it (the state), communicated with officials to push them to perform their role,” Hajj Hassan added during a funeral in the region.

United Nations peacekeepers have observed seven Israeli activities in southern Lebanon violating U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the activities took place north of the U.N.-drawn boundary between Israel and Lebanon. The 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution requires Israeli forces to remain south of the boundary known as the Blue Line.

U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has denied a media report about alleged discussions with “an unnamed Lebanese official in Doha” as “baseless, false and misleading.”

Top German diplomat Annalena Baerbock, on a visit to Beirut on Wednesday, said her government rejected "any permanent occupation" of Lebanese territory by Israel, whose troops remain in the country's south despite a November truce.

The November 27 ceasefire agreement ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah, but Israel has since continued to carry out strikes and maintained a military presence in five locations in southern Lebanon, near the border.

President Joseph Aoun told Wednesday German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock that Israel has refused to leave the five "strategic" hills where Israeli troops are still deployed beyond a Feb. 18 deadline for full withdrawal.

"Israel has refused all the Lebanese proposals to leave the five hills in south Lebanon and is still detaining a number of Lebanese prisoners," Aoun told Baerbock, adding that Israel is obstructing the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and violating a ceasefire reached in late November by occupying Lebanese land.

As the UK Emergency Medical Team (UK-EMT) ends their 5-month deployment in Lebanon, the British Embassy held a workshop for local and international partners.