"Hezbollah is signaling it might risk war with Israel ahead of conclusion of maritime border talks," Israeli newspaper Haaretz said.

The daily added, in remarks published Monday, that tensions are rising along Israel's northern border.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday demanded the election of a president who would "not only demarcate the state's border with the countries surrounding Lebanon, but also with Lebanese forces acting as if there are no inviolability, borders nor dignity for the state, legitimacy and the army."

Lebanon and Israel are nearing an agreement over the demarcation of their maritime border, an official Lebanese source said.

“We are very close to reaching an agreement over the demarcation of the sea border with Israel,” the source told Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

MP Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, has warned that presidential vacuum would “weaken the national stance in the face of the external threats.”

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday threatened anew that there would be an “escalation” if Lebanon does not get what it wants in the sea border negotiations with Israel.

“If the Lebanese state is not given what it wants, we will be heading to an escalation, even if the nuclear agreement gets signed,” Nasrallah said in a televised address during a Hezbollah ceremony, referring to the possibility of a new nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers.

The 13 MPs of the “change” bloc on Friday announced that they will launch a “comprehensive initiative” regarding the presidential election in early September.

“This initiative will include the political stances and the constitutional and values-related approach that would establish a political and popular incubator that would push for the election of a president who would contribute to launching a salvation course for the country,” they said in a statement.

Lebanon’s General Security agency has arrested Abdullah Yasser Sabawi, a grandson of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who is accused of involvement in the 2014 Camp Speicher massacre in Iraq.

“He is accused of carrying out criminal operations that resulted in the death of thousands of innocents, based on an Interpol warrant that has been enforced by the relevant Lebanese security agencies,” General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim told Iraq’s IMN TV.

Israel has accepted Lebanon's demands in the border demarcation file and needs few more weeks to finalize the agreement, al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

In remarks published Friday, the daily said that Israel wants guarantees that Hezbollah will not attack Israel gas rigs in case the agreement is not reached by mid-September.

Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad has said that Hezbollah is "the real sovereign party" in Lebanon, a word usually used by Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea to describe the parties that oppose Hezbollah.

Many times, Geagea had called for a "sovereign" Prime Minister and a "sovereign" President and dubbed the opposition MPs as "sovereign." A sovereign President, for him, would be a President who can confront Hezbollah and its allies.

Caretaker Minister of the Displaced Issam Sharafeddine accused Friday Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati of not wanting to repatriate the Syrian refugees.

"Mikati doesn't want to facilitate the repatriation of the refugees," Sharafeddine said, adding that he and Mikati are at odds because of many disagreements over economic issues, and not just because of the refugees case.