Five youngsters including several minors were released at dawn Sunday after being arrested around midnight for removing a banner hung outside the offices of the Free Patriotic Movement in the Upper Metn town of Hammana.

The National News Agency said residents of the area were rallying outside the Hammana police station when the five were released.

Hizbullah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem on Saturday said the United States was “delaying” the formation of a government in Lebanon, stressing that Hizbullah “will not be dragged into sedition,” media reports quoted him as saying.

Protesters closed exchange houses during a demonstration in the northern city of Tripoli, as the country grapples with nationwide protests entering 38th day demanding an overhaul of the whole political class.

The protesters say exchange houses are trading US dollars to the Lebanese pound contrary to the local currency peg set by the central bank.

Jeffrey Feltman, former US ambassador to Lebanon, said that Hizbullah’s reputation “dwindled” throughout the demonstrations in Lebanon and has become part of the political problem in the country, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Saturday.

The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday congratulated Lebanon as the country marked its independence day but made no mention of the hold-up in aid that State Department and Pentagon officials have complained about for weeks.

Lebanon has been paralysed by more than a month of protests demanding an overhaul of the entire political system.

The US Department of State on Friday congratulated Lebanon on Independence Day, affirming willingness to cooperate with a new Lebanese government meeting the aspirations of its people, one day after Trump's letter to Aoun in the same context.

Lebanon's top politicians are attending a military parade on the country's 76th Independence Day.

They appeared together Friday for the first time since the government resigned amid nationwide protests.

Marking the country’s Independence Day, Lebanese, in a first in Lebanon’s history, will go on nationwide “civil marches” marking the occasion as the uprising enters day 37.

An unknown assailant on Friday torched the large clenched fist with “revolution” written on it that demonstrators raised at Martyrs’ Square in Central Beirut.