The International Monetary Fund said that more work is needed to reach an agreement on restructuring Lebanon's banking sector, one of the steps towards unlocking billions of dollars in financial assistance.

The Lebanese Army announced that it seized a large number of arms and ammunition from a depot in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, adding that it arrested one person.

Bilal Erdogan, the son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, paid an visit to the northern city of Tripoli on Friday, where he began his tour at the al-Tal Square and inspected the historic Sultan Abdul Hamid Clock Tower, which served as a symbolic gift to the city of Tripoli. He then toured the city's old souks and visited Salam al-Sibai, one of Sultan Abdul Hamid's granddaughters.

Erdogan later moved to the Grand Mansouri Mosque, where he was received by the Mufti of Tripoli and the North, Sheikh Mohammad Imam, the Mayor of Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Karimeh, and a crowd of the city's prominent figures, inspecting the Relic of the Noble Prophet section.

The judicial investigator into the Beirut port explosion case, Judge Tarek Bitar, on Friday interrogated a new defendant in the file, Lebanese Army chief warrant officer Roudy F., who had been tasked by the army with inspecting Hangar 12 prior to its explosion, the National News Agency said.

NNA reported that the interrogation took place in the presence of Attorney General Judge Mohammad Saab and the lawyers representing the defendant.

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have reached a conclusion that they should soon place the issue of referring the Dahr al-Baidar case to the Judicial Council on the agenda of an upcoming cabinet session, MTV reported on Friday.

A Hezbollah truck has been stopped at the Dahr al-Baidar checkpoint, on the main highway linking Beirut to the eastern Bekaa Valley, earlier this month. It was carrying 780 kilograms of explosives, including 250 kilograms of TNT and 250 kilograms of C-4 plastic explosives, according to judicial officials.

Israeli forces carried out a series of artillery strikes, detonations, and drone overflights across southern Lebanon and the capital on Friday, the National News Agency said.

An Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade on the southern town of Yater while Israeli troops carried out a heavy detonation in the town of Khiam.

The Trump administration is considering establishing a mechanism similar to the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) stationed in Egypt to monitor the trilateral agreement between Lebanon and Israel, as a potential post-UNIFIL arrangement, Asharq Bloomberg has reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is deeply involved in the file, had raised the possibility of a civilian monitoring team a few days ago.

Lebanese authorities have requested that Damascus arrest and extradite two Syrian nationals suspected of involvement in the murder of former Iraqi MP Ahmed al-Alwani in Beirut, media reports said.

A judicial source had said that the two suspects fled to Syria, while preliminary investigations revealed the involvement of three individuals -- including a Lebanese national who was previously arrested.

Hezbollah has tasked MP Hussein Hajj Hassan with contacting judicial authorities— specifically Public Prosecutor Judge Ahmad Rami al-Hajj — to request that the five Hezbollah men arrested earlier this week in Bsharri be handed over, MTV said in a report Friday.

Hajj Hassan said the five detainees would be considered like the group's prisoners held by Israel, the report said, adding that Public Prosecutor al-Hajj insisted that the investigation would take its course.

Judicial and security authorities in Lebanon are investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of former Iraqi MP Ahmed al-Alwani inside a residential apartment in Beirut, amid information that has so far ruled out financial motives or robbery behind the crime.

While a Lebanese suspect is in custody, preliminary information indicates that two other suspected accomplices fled to Syria just a few hours after carrying out the murder, though their full identities and nationalities have not yet been confirmed, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported.