President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly asked Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab to “decelerate” his efforts to form a new government after “sensing his eagerness to form it within days,” the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Friday.

With volunteer kitchens, makeshift clinics and donation centres, Lebanon's protesters are helping their compatriots survive the worst economic crisis since the civil war by offering services many can no longer afford.

MP Hasan Fadlallah of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc on Thursday said the Finance Parliamentary Committee discussed ways of retrieving funds transferred abroad in violation of restrictions.

"We are talking about $11 billion," Fadlallah said, without specifying who carried out such transfers or when they took place.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday posted a tweet commemorating slain minister Mohammed Shatah, who was killed in a December 2013 car bombing in central Beirut.

“Mohammed Shatah was the force of moderation and dialogue in the era of divisions and extremism and he was the symbol of loyalty and bravery during the difficult days,” Hariri tweeted.

The head of the Finance Parliamentary Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan on Thursday announced that the committee has approved the 2020 state budget, slashing expenses worth LBP 1,000 billion from the draft devised by the government.

“The surplus secured in the budget will provide the needed funds for the health care of 12,000 self-registered social security beneficiaries,” Kanaan said after a meeting for the committee with caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and Association of Banks chief Salim Sfeir.

Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab has reportedly met with Speaker Nabih Berri away from media spotlight to discuss the delayed formation of a new government, LBCI television reported on Thursday.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said that legal measures will be taken to know the fate of sums of money allegedly transferred to Switzerland, amid an unprecedented economic and liquidity crisis gripping Lebanon.

A stormy weather accompanied with rain and snow has been battering Lebanon since Wednesday damaging homes, blockading roads and flooding major highways.

The repatriation of a new batch of Syrian refugees from Lebanon has been postponed on Thursday because of bad weather, the National News Agency reported.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement official ex-MP Mustafa Alloush on Wednesday lamented that “all the attempts to protect the Presidency from the pettiness of the son-in-law have failed,” in a jab at Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, who is President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law.

“All what we hope for today on Christmas Day is mercy for Lebanon in the face of the maliciousness of the devil and his greed for swallowing everything and depriving the Lebanese of welfare and hope,” Alloush tweeted.