The Israeli army overnight carried out air strikes and fired rockets at targets in Syria, causing damage near a military position, the Syrian army said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the air strikes targeted Syrian army and Hizbullah weapon depots.

Kataeb MP Sami Gemayel pushed for the formation of a parliamentary inquiry commission to hold the authorities accountable over their negligence in tackling the solid waste crisis in Lebanon, the National News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos on Tuesday said he signed a decree appointing 125 individuals who had passed admission exams as air traffic controllers.

President Michel Aoun held a meeting with the Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh at the Baabda Palace, the Presidency media office said on Tuesday.

Salameh assured Aoun that “the beginning of the fiscal year was reassuring and the central bank was continuing its measures to support the economy,” the Presidency's Twitter wrote.

Electricite du Liban daily contract workers staged a sit-in on Tuesday near the company's premises to pressure the government into a long-standing demand that makes them full-time employees and to protest the finance ministry's failure to address their concerns during its meeting the previous day.

Lebnan Makhoul, a member of the EDL contract workers committee, told VDL (100.5): “The electricity crisis is open. Officials have been ignoring the demands of 1000 contract workers who have not received their salaries for the last three month.”

Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on Monday stressed that there are no “political motives” behind the crisis that has been gripping the electricity sector for several days now, as he announced that an agreement has been reached with the syndicate of Electricité du Liban workers.

“A positive result has been reached in the issue of the new wage scale of EDL workers,” said Khalil after a meeting with Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil and a workers delegation.

Reports of a five-party electoral alliance that comprises Hizbullah are baseless, Mustaqbal Movement secretary-general Ahmed Hariri stressed on Monday.

“Our dispute with Hizbullah is a major dispute that starts in Lebanon and involves Syria, Iraq and Yemen as well as Hizbullah's entire role within the Iranian scheme. This major dispute cannot be turned into an electoral alliance under any formula that may be proposed,” Hariri said in an interview with Future TV.

The Kataeb Party on Monday called on citizens to “prepare for the elections,” while emphasizing that it will not bow to “oppressive practices” that belong to the Syrian “hegemony era.”

“The Kataeb Party calls on citizens to prepare for the elections, which are the definite and only way to rebuild Lebanon, renew its political life and hold accountable a futile political class that has distanced itself from the state's sovereignty and people's living and social concerns,” said Kataeb in a statement issued after its politburo's weekly meeting.

Newly-appointed Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Yaaqoub on Monday lamented that some Lebanese parties “do not want good ties” between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

“Unfortunately, there are parties in Lebanon who do not want a good relation between the kingdom and Lebanon,” said al-Yaaqoub in response to a reporter's question after talks with ex-PM Najib Miqati.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday received at the Grand Serail the Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zaspykin in the presence of Hariri's adviser for Russian Affairs George Shaaban where talks highlighted the latest developments and the means to promote bilateral relations between the two countries, Hariri's media office said.