Twenty-six inmates escaped at dawn Monday from the Jeb Jannine prison in West Bekaa, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The agency added that most of the escapees were jailed over drug trading and arms-related offenses.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday hit out at Hezbollah without naming it over two recent issues.

It was agreed in the cosultative ministerial meeting that was held Friday at the Grand Serail to form a ministerial panel in an attempt to heal the rift between the government's quarreling camps, media reports said.

Hezbollah is keen on its 2006 memorandum of understanding with its ally the Free Patriotic Movement and "will not withdraw" from it "unless the FPM wants so," Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said.

The evidence suggests the involvement of two shooters in the deadly attack on UNIFIL near al-Aqbiyeh and security forces are now seeking the arrest of the two suspects, a Lebanese judicial source said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and nineteen caretaker ministers held a “consultative meeting” Friday at the Grand Serail, the National News Agency said, in the wake of the controversy over the latest caretaker cabinet session which was boycotted by the Free Patriotic Movement ministers.

The Lebanese Forces on Friday strongly condemned the deadly attack on a UNIFIL convoy in south Lebanon, urging the Lebanese government to “carry out a transparent and swift probe and bring the aggressor killers to justice.”

“The armed attack on a UNIFIL vehicle is a dangerous indication that confirms what’s already confirmed regarding the proliferation of arms outside Lebanese legitimacy,” the LF said in a statement.

An explosion, reportedly caused by a gas leak, wounded eight people on Friday in the Northern Metn town of Beit Misk and badly damaged a residential building.

The Civil Defense said its crews managed to rescue a woman and her son from beneath the rubble, rushing them to hospital. First aid was also offered on the spot to six foreign workers who were present near the building.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Army Commander General Joseph Aoun on Friday visited the headquarters of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Naqoura to offer condolences over the death of an Irish peacekeeper in an incident in the southern town of al-Aqbiya..

Mikati and Aoun were welcomed by UNIFIL chief Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, who discussed with them the incident’s circumstances and the situation in the South, in addition to UNIFIL’s operations and the activities it carries out in cooperation with the Lebanese Army.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has condemned the deadly attack on UNIFIL troops in south Lebanon, as online videos showed a UNIFIL vehicle coming under a hail of bullets in the area of the incident.

Cell phone videos circulated online have showed one of two UNIFIL vehicles speeding to leave the area while it was shot at in the southern town of al-Aqbiyeh. Some residents were visible filming the incident. Another video showed the vehicle had rolled over after crashing into the aluminum shutters of a building, with a wounded peacekeeper on the ground beside it. The incident left one Irish peacekeeper dead and three others wounded. The 23-year-old peacekeeper died of a bullet to the head according to a Lebanese judicial official.