Several activists placed an anti-Turkey banner Thursday morning on the gate of the Turkish embassy in Rabieh, amid a row between Lebanon and Turkey over the 1516-1918 Ottoman administration of Lebanon.

“You too bug off”, says the banner, which shows a Turkish flag defiled with what appears to be the angel of death. The slogan emulates an anti-Israel term that Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah used in a speech in recent days.

Pierre Duquesne, the French inter-ministerial delegate for the Mediterranean who is in charge of following up on the implementation of the CEDRE conference resolutions, on Wednesday called on Lebanon to speed up the implementation of key financial and economic reforms.

“I left with an impression that the premier is moving forward on the path of the necessary transformations for the Lebanese economy within the framework of the CEDRE conference,” Duquesne said after meeting Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major-General Stefano Del Col held talks Wednesday with Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Beirut, after which he described Hizbullah’s latest anti-Israel attack as a “gross violation,” stressing that the area south of the Litani River must be free of any weapons other than those of the government.

A dispute between a guard of MP Talal Arslan and a Progressive Socialist Party official escalated into gunfire Wednesday in the town of Choueifat.

“LDP member and MP Talal Arslan’s personal bodyguard Fahd Jadallah Azzam intercepted the head of the PSP Choueifat-Khalde department Marwan Abi Faraj and slammed his car into the latter’s car,” the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa news portal reported.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday said Lebanon can steer away from the economic crisis if it implements the items agreed at an emergency economic meeting earlier this week, adding that the 2020 draft state budget “may” be distributed to ministers at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow.

The Maronite Bishops on Wednesday lauded Lebanon’s move in filing a complaint to the United Nations Security Council against Israel’s aggression, and commended the “initiative” of President Michel Aoun in declaring a state of economic emergency in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri is expected to meet in Paris later in September French President Emmanuel Macron to follow on the pledged billions in loans and grants agreed at the CEDRE conference in Paris last year, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Wednesday.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on Tuesday claimed that Hizbullah has set up a factory for producing precision-guided missiles near the Bekaa town of al-Nabi Sheet, saying the purported plant is part of the party’s alleged precision missile program.

“This site is of great importance to Hizbullah regarding the precision-guided missile program, that’s why Hizbullah operatives have been evacuating special and expensive equipment from it, fearing a strike on the location,” Adraee tweeted.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed Tuesday that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 has not “fallen,” despite the latest exchange of hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah.

“The Lebanese state has diplomatically contained what happened, from the issue of the drones all the way to Hizbullah’s response,” Hariri told al-Jadeed television.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the Turkish ambassador to protest a Turkish statement that criticized President Michel Aoun over his latest remarks about the Ottoman era.

“At the instructions of Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, the ministry’s director of political and consular affairs Ghadi al-Khoury summoned Turkish Ambassador to Lebanon Hakan Cakil in connection with the statement issued by the Turkish foreign ministry on September 1,” the Lebanese ministry said in a statement.