Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that he would accept that a parliamentary session be held to elect a new president without the participation of the Shiite MPs in it.

There is “nothing more symbolic of victory” than the safe return of displaced residents to north Israel, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi told heads of local authorities during a meeting in the north.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab on Friday said that Israel is “obliged to resort to a diplomatic solution” with Lebanon and that “the atmosphere is suitable for that.”

Israel is drawing up plans to expand its ground offensive in southern Lebanon alongside the diplomatic efforts, Israel’s top general said, as its warplanes intensified their air campaign against targets in Lebanon.

Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli army, said that “alongside the political attempt to reach understandings in Lebanon,” the Israeli army “must continue to formulate plans to continue the fighting in Lebanon, including expanding and deepening the ground maneuver.”

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will “fulfill the promises” that he had made in the letter that he had recently addressed to Lebanese-American voters, Trump’s Arab affairs adviser Massad Boulos said.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had “signed a written pledge at Hassan Abbas’ restaurant (in the U.S. state of Michigan) to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon once he wins.”

Lebanese state media said an Israeli drone strike on Thursday targeted a car on a key road linking the capital Beirut with the Bekaa plain and eastern neighbor Syria.

"An enemy drone targeted a car in Araya," the National News Agency said, adding the road had been cut off by the strike that comes after two cars were targets on the same route last week, including a van loaded with Hezbollah ammunition.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qasem said Wednesday his group has tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight Israel, in a speech marking 40 days since his predecessor Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike.

"We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants" ready to fight, he said, adding that nowhere in Israel was "off-limits" to the group’s attacks.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has marked 40 days since Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah by publishing a eulogy and political statement in al-Akhbar newspaper.

The caretaker Cabinet on Wednesday approved granting the Defense Ministry a treasury loan to recruit 1,500 soldiers for the Lebanese Army.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati had announced at the Oct. 24 Paris conference that his government had decided to recruit more troops and could deploy 8,000 soldiers in the south as part of a plan to implement a ceasefire and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.