Twenty-six inmates escaped at dawn Monday from the Jeb Jannine prison in West Bekaa, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The agency added that most of the escapees were jailed over drug trading and arms-related offenses.

The body of an Irish United Nations peacekeeper killed in Lebanon was on Monday returned to Ireland with full military honors.

Nour is raising her four-month-old daughter in Lebanon's most overpopulated women's prison, struggling to get formula and nappies for her baby as the country's economy lies in tatters.

"I don't have enough milk to breastfeed, and baby formula isn't readily available," said the 25-year-old, who was detained eight months ago on drug-related accusations.

The Lebanese Army and U.N. peacekeepers held a memorial at the Beirut airport on Sunday for an Irish soldier killed by a mob that opened fire last week at two vehicles belonging to the U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

The attack that killed 24 year-old Pvt. Seán Rooney of Newtowncunningham took place near the southern town of al-Aqbiyeh on Wednesday night, as he and seven other Irish peacekeepers from a U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, were on their way to the Beirut airport.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday hit out at Hezbollah without naming it over two recent issues.

It was agreed in the cosultative ministerial meeting that was held Friday at the Grand Serail to form a ministerial panel in an attempt to heal the rift between the government's quarreling camps, media reports said.

Hezbollah is keen on its 2006 memorandum of understanding with its ally the Free Patriotic Movement and "will not withdraw" from it "unless the FPM wants so," Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said.

The evidence suggests the involvement of two shooters in the deadly attack on UNIFIL near al-Aqbiyeh and security forces are now seeking the arrest of the two suspects, a Lebanese judicial source said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and nineteen caretaker ministers held a “consultative meeting” Friday at the Grand Serail, the National News Agency said, in the wake of the controversy over the latest caretaker cabinet session which was boycotted by the Free Patriotic Movement ministers.

The Lebanese Forces on Friday strongly condemned the deadly attack on a UNIFIL convoy in south Lebanon, urging the Lebanese government to “carry out a transparent and swift probe and bring the aggressor killers to justice.”

“The armed attack on a UNIFIL vehicle is a dangerous indication that confirms what’s already confirmed regarding the proliferation of arms outside Lebanese legitimacy,” the LF said in a statement.