Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab announced Wednesday, after a joint committees session, that "it has become impossible to stage the municipal elections," as he blamed the government for failing to secure the needed funds.

Joint parliamentary committees convened Wednesday to discuss funding the municipal elections, while caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi and caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil failed to attend the session.

Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil has condemned a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon that triggered Israeli strikes.

"We don't need anyone to use our land to send messages," Bassil said, adding that "we should have learned from our past."

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has called for the election of a “maestro” president for the country.

Joint parliamentary committees will convene on Wednesday morning to discuss funding the municipal elections.

Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi had urged the government to secure the necessary funds and complete the administrative preparations for the elections that are supposed to start on May 7.

Hezbollah’s media department announced Sunday that the group’s chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, received a Hamas delegation headed by the Palestinian group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday stressed that the country’s new president should enjoy the “confidence” of the people and the world.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has defended his government’s response to the latest cross-border escalation with Israel, which was the most serious flare-up since the 2006 war.

Israeli-Palestinian tensions reached a peak Sunday at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem amid simultaneous religious rituals.

Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city's Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday. At the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a walled esplanade above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Saturday condemned the use of Lebanese territory to fire rockets at Israel, in the wake of the most serious cross-border escalation since the 2006 war.

The Israeli shelling at dawn of areas near the Palestinian refugee camp of al-Rashidiyeh in south Lebanon led to the death of six sheep and several birds and damages to a livestock barn, the National News Agency said.