Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly warned against confronting the Lebanese Army.

“Whoever throws (even a) rose at the Lebanese Army is a dog, a son of a dog, and this is the stance of the Amal and Hezbollah duo,” LBCI television quoted visitors of Berri as saying.

After his remarks sparked outrage in Lebanon and beyond, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has offered an indirect apology to Lebanese journalists who were offended by his chiding remarks at the Baabda Palace, saying his use of the word “animalistic” was not meant to be voiced in “a derogatory manner.”

“I’m just saying, ‘Can we calm down, can we find some tolerance, some kindness. Yeah, let’s be, let’s be civilized.’ But it was inappropriate to do when the media is just doing their job,” Barrack said in an interview with Mario Nawfal on the X platform.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held talks Wednesday in Egypt's New Alamein City with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the presence of Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh and Energy Minister Joe Saddi.

During the meeting, Salam explained the government's priorities for the next phase, both in terms of ongoing economic reforms and completing the process of “extending state authority over all its territory,” adding that Lebanon looks forward to strengthening cooperation and integration with all Arab countries.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stressed that Tehran is not “interfering in Lebanon’s internal affairs.”

“But that does not prevent us from expressing our opinions and stances and this is what all countries are doing. Saudi Arabia for example is expressing its viewpoint on Lebanon and that is not considered interference,” Araghchi said in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Wedneday expressed frustration and said U.S. envoys Tom Barrack and Morgan Ortagus "brought nothing from Israel" and "came with something contrary to what they had promised us."

“Things have once again become complicated,” Berri said in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

At the start of a news conference at the Baabda Palace on Tuesday, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack warned raucous journalists to be quiet, telling them to “act civilized, act kind, act tolerant.”

He threatened to end the conference early otherwise.

President Joseph Aoun stressed Tuesday to a visiting U.S. delegation that Lebanon is “fully committed” to the Nov. 27 cessation of hostilities declaration and to the joint U.S.-Lebanese paper that was approved in Cabinet on August 5 and 7 without any selectivity.

The U.S. delegation comprised special envoys to Lebanon Tom Barrack and Morgan Ortagus, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Lindsey Graham, and Representative Joe Wilson.

An unnamed Israeli political official told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya television on Tuesday that “regardless of the internal debate in Lebanon” on Hezbollah’s disarmament, Israel will “continue its attacks to disarm Hezbollah.”

“The Lebanese Army and government must act firmly against Hezbollah,” the Israeli official added.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday called on the government to “hold intensive sessions to discuss how to regain sovereignty through diplomacy, equipping the army and a defense strategy.”

“If we want to solve our problems in Lebanon, the start should be halting the aggression, Israel’s withdrawal, reconstruction and releasing the captives, and the government today is responsible for devising a plan for achieving this sovereignty,” said Qassem in a televised speech commemorating late religious scholar Sheikh Abbas Ali al-Moussawi.

Syria’s interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa has lamented that some in Lebanon are depicting Syria’s new authorities as “terrorists and an existential threat” while other Lebanese “want to rely on the strength of new Syria to settle scores with Hezbollah.”

“We are neither this nor that,” Sharaa added.