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An explosion at Al-Shami factory for water heaters in Burj al-Barajneh yesterday killed four people. The explosion was triggered by welding work being done at the factory, Civil Defense regional head Saad Ahmar told L'Orient Today, while the state-run National News Agency reported that four people had been killed. Ahmar said that three people had also been injured in the blast. In a separate incident in north Lebanon, the Civil Defense battled a fire that broke out at a gas station in Hadath al-Jibbe, in the area of Bsharri. The NNA reported that the gas station owner was treated in hospital for burn injuries.

Two more men have succumbed to their injuries from the fuel tanker explosion in Akkar. A man identified as Taleb al-Hassan who was seriously burned in the Aug. 15 explosion died yesterday, the NNA reported. Hassan was being treated in Kuwait before he died. Another victim on Sunday, identified as Ali Jamal Chrayteh, also died from injuries sustained during the explosion in Tleil while being treated in Turkey, L'Orient-Le Jour reported. The explosion has so far killed more than 30 people.

The European Union put Lebanon back on a list of countries subject to COVID-19 related travel restrictions yesterday, amid rising COVID-19 cases. The decision also reinstated the ban on nonessential travel to the EU for travelers coming from the United States, Israel, Kosovo, Montenegro and the Republic of North Macedonia. However, the decision from the European Council is not legally binding. “The authorities of the member states remain responsible for implementing the content of the recommendation. They may, in full transparency, lift only progressively travel restrictions towards countries listed,” the statement from the European Council said. Lebanon recorded 775 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and the number of daily cases has been hovering between 1,000 and 2,000 over recent weeks.

The UN Security Council voted to renew the UNIFIL peacekeeping force’s mandate in south Lebanon for another year. In the resolution adopted yesterday to reauthorize the mandate of the 10,000-strong international force to monitor the cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel. The Security Council also, for the first time, requested UNIFIL to take “temporary and special measures” to assist the Lebanese Army with non-lethal materials such as food, fuel and medicine, and logistical support for a six-month period. The cash-strapped army has lately been trying to sell off multi-million dollar equipment and offering helicopter rides to tourists in an attempt to boost its budget.

A military court handed down a 20-year forced labor sentence to Salafist sheikh Ahmad al-Assir yesterday for his role in deadly 2014 clashes between Islamist fighters and the Lebanese Army in the northern town of Bhanin. Assir had already, in 2017, been sentenced to death for his role in separate clashes between his supporters and the army that took place in Saida in 2013. While the death penalty is officially still on the books in Lebanon, there has been a de facto moratorium on executions in the country since 2004.