On a visit to Lebanon on Thursday, Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič, announced €60 million in humanitarian aid for the most vulnerable people in the country, including Syrian refugees and Lebanese people in need. The Commissioner is visiting EU-funded humanitarian projects and meeting humanitarian partners on the ground as well as the Lebanese authorities.

The funding comes as Lebanon’s population is facing increasing poverty levels, food insecurity, and disease outbreaks. An estimated four million people need humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs, the European Commission said in a statement.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will call next week for a cabinet session, his advisor said Thursday.

Cabinet was scheduled to convene last Monday but the session on public sector wages was postponed, after the government said last week that it will delay the start of daylight saving time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday said that “the issue of the municipal elections has become totally in the hands of the government.”

Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh scrapped a deal for a second terminal at Beirut's international airport, after critics raised transparency concerns in the $122 million project.

"Based on a Hezbollah request, I bravely announce that the contract will not be implemented, as if it's null and void," Hamieh said, shortly before the parliamentary public works committee convened.

Protesters, including retired soldiers, rallied Thursday at Riad al-Solh's square, facing the Grand Serail, to demand better pay as public sector employees start this month withdrawing their salaries at the LL90,000 Sayrafa rate.

The protesters tried again to break through the fence leading to the Grand Serail.

EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič is visiting Lebanon on Thursday and Friday, to reaffirm the EU’s solidarity with the most vulnerable people in the country and to express the EU’s readiness to assist with the future stabilization of Lebanon, the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon said.

He will meet with Lebanese officials, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar, international organizations, civil society organizations and beneficiaries of EU funded programs in various regions of Lebanon.

Kataeb party leader Sami Gemayel said Wednesday that Hezbollah will not be able to impose a president on the Lebanese and that such a president would be the president of "Hezbollah's republic" and not of all the Lebanese.

In a press conference, Gemayel said that the elected president should have the ability and willingness to negotiate in order to restore sovereignty and solve the problem of Hezbollah's weapons.

The Observatoire Européen pour l’Integrité du Liban said Wednesday that it has informed the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau of Ireland of the case related to the construction of a new terminal in the Beirut airport.

"We’ll make sure that the case will be followed closely," OEIL said.

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari on Wednesday met with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati at the Grand Serail.

MP Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces has said that the verbal clashes in Tuesday’s Joint Parliamentary Committees session were aimed at “deviating attention from the actual need for holding municipal elections, which some are seeking to postpone.”