Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called for a dialogue "without prejudgments."

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has met with Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhalah and Hamas deputy politburo head Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri, Hezbollah said on Saturday.

Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel on Friday rejected Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for dialogue that would precede open sessions for the election of a president.

“The proposal to hold successive sessions to elect a president on the condition that we participate in dialogue is an acknowledgment that you were deliberately violating the constitution and that all the excuses that you were using are invalid,” Gemayel said in a post on the X social media platform.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has expressed optimism about a presidential dialogue which might take place in September, as he again called for decentralization, creating a trust fund and completing the Central Bank forensic audit.

In a speech Thursday, Bassil said the FPM had a clear condition to participate in a dialogue suggested by French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian.

On August 1, 2023, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a contract to RTI International, a nonprofit research institute and leading international development organization, to implement the new five-year $96.9M Quality Instruction Towards Access and Basic Education Improvement (QITABI) 3 to support Lebanon’s education system.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) and the Center for Educational Research and Development (CRDP), USAID’s QITABI 3 will improve literacy, numeracy, social and emotional learning (SEL), and inclusive education outcomes for students nationwide. The project will also provide life skills and career guidance to students at the intermediate and secondary levels.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who had arrived Thursday in Beirut, met Friday with Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

On Thursday, upon his arrival to Beirut's airport, Abdollahian said he will urge the Lebanese officials for a swift election of a president, adding that the Lebanese must choose their president themselves.

MP Sethrida Geagea of the Lebanese Forces bloc on Friday said that Speaker Nabih Berri is “insisting that he will not call for a presidential election session unless there is a prior agreement.”

“This stance in itself is a major constitutional violation, seeing as the constitution does not stipulate consensus but rather election,” Geagea said.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday called on the heads of parliamentary blocs and political parties to participate in “dialogue in parliament for seven days at most in September” before going to “open-ended sessions to elect a president.”

“The presidential vote cannot take place through imposing a candidate or paralyzing state institutions. Is it a crime to call for consensus and dialogue?” Berri added, in a speech marking the 45th anniversary of the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr.

UNIFIL term extended, resolution mentions undeclared patrols

The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Thursday demanding that Lebanon guarantee freedom of movement for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force, "including by allowing announced and unannounced patrols."

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein on Thursday visited south Lebanon where met with UNIFIL chief Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz and toured the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, LBCI television said.