Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar of the Free Patriotic Movement will file an appeal before the State Shoura Council against the decrees that were issued in the latest caretaker cabinet session, al-Jadeed TV reported on Tuesday.
Speaking to al-Jadeed, the media adviser of caretaker PM Najib Mikati, Fares Gemayel, stressed that “the decrees are constitutional and cannot be appealed.”

A Hezbollah delegation held talks Monday in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.

An informed Hezbollah source on Monday denied in remarks to Iran’s state news agency IRNA the “rumors” published by some Israeli and Arab media outlets about the health of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Kataeb Party and a number of independent MPs are preparing to endorse a new plan to deal with the presidential crisis, after parliament failed to elect a president despite holding ten electoral sessions, an LF MP said.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed Sunday that the election of a new president does not happen through “the heresy of prior agreement on him,” but rather through “a vote combined with consultations.”
A televised speech by Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah scheduled for Friday evening has been postponed for “health reasons,” Hezbollah’s media relations department said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday pledged to continue carrying out his “duties” despite any “obstructions or difficulties.”
“We hope the new year will be the start of Lebanon’s exit from the stifling crisis it is going through,” Mikati said, during an end-of-the-year meeting with the premiership’s employees.

A Hezbollah commander and his bodyguard, both Lebanese, were killed when Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants targeted their military vehicle with a guided missile in Aleppo’s western countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.
The attack also killed a Syrian national.

Gunshots hit al-Jadeed TV’s building overnight in Beirut’s Cola area, in the third attack against the TV network in four days.
“Heavy gunfire was heard in the channel’s vicinity and security forces guarding the building since several days said it was hit by several gunshots,” al-Jadeed said.

A fresh war of words has broken out between caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Free Patriotic Movement over signatures related to governmental decrees.
In a statement issued overnight, the FPM accused Mikati of “staging an act of forgery and using forgery in the issuance of unconstitutional and illegal decrees that contravene the National Pact,” charging that the premier has forged the signatures of the ministers of social affairs and defense on two decrees.
