French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said he welcomes “the encouraging announcements by the Lebanese authorities to restore the State’s monopoly on weapons,” a day after the Lebanese Army announced the completion of the first phase of its arms monopolization plan.

“This process must be pursued resolutely. The second phase of the plan will be a decisive step,” Macron said in a post on X.

Top officials from the European Union will visit Lebanon Friday, where the army a day earlier announced it had completed the first stage of a plan to remove weapons from nonstate groups, including Hezbollah.

The visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council António Costa was part of a regional tour.

A consortium comprising TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy and Italy’s Eni on Friday signed with Lebanonj an agreement for gas exploration in Block 8 off the Lebanese coast. The ceremony took place this morning at the Grand Serail.

The agreement was signed on the Lebanese side by Minister of Energy and Water Joe Saddi.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who arrived Thursday in Beirut at a crucial time, met Friday with President Joseph Aoun and his counterpart Youssef Rajji.

Araghchi's visit comes as Lebanon's army announced it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani river.

Israeli airstrikes on Friday targeted several areas in south and east Lebanon, with the Israeli army claiming that they struck alleged Hezbollah sites, a day after the Lebanese Army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm the group in the south.

In the south, the strikes hit open areas near Kfarfila, Sujud, Houmine al-Fawqa and Deir al-Zahrani in the Iqlim al-Tuffah region and the al-Bissariyeh area near Sidon. The raids also targeted the outskirts of the town of al-Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa and the al-Jabbour hills in west Bekaa.

France has welcomed Lebanon's announcement that the first phase of the army's plan to disarm Hezbollah in south Lebanon has been completed.

On Thursday, after the army leadership briefed the cabinet on progress on the disarmament plan, Information Minister Paul Morcos said the government emphasized the need to continue implementing the plan "as quickly as possible".

An Israeli drone strike on Thursday targeted a car between Zaita and Bnaafoul in the Sidon district, killing one person, with Israel claiming that it hit a Hezbollah member.

Israel has intensified its strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon in recent days.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Hezbollah is "rearming faster than it is being disarmed," showing a map of alleged Hezbollah compounds, launch sites, and underground networks south of the Litani River.

Lebanon's military had said it had concluded the first phase of a plan to fully deploy across southern Lebanon and disarm non-state groups, notably Hezbollah.

Judge Habib Rizkallah issued an indictment Thursday in the case filed by former state prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat against Judge Tarek Bitar, the investigative judge in the Beirut port explosion case, on charges of "impersonating an investigative judge and usurping authority."

Rizkallah decided to dismiss the case against Bitar because “Oueidat had recused himself from the case as state prosecutor and therefore lacked the legal standing to prosecute Bitar.”

As the Lebanese army announced it had completed the first phase of Hezbollah's disarmament, a report in Israeli Maariv newspaper claimed that the army's statement was "far from the truth", describing army chief Rodolphe Haykal as "a clown" who would tell his government "fairy tales".

The report, published Thursday, said the Israeli army will have to act to disarm Hezbollah itself.