The resignation of the Lebanese government
Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hassan told Reuters that Prime Minister Hassan al-Diab will shortly announce the resignation of the government.
Ministers who spoke to "Sky News Arabia" channel this evening, Monday, also confirmed the resignation of the Lebanese government headed by Hassan Diab.
The correspondent of "Russia Today" channel in Beirut said, today, Monday, that the session of the Lebanese Council of Ministers has ended, and that he is expected to go to announce the government's resignation shortly.
The sources reported that Diab will shortly announce the resignation of his government and head to Baabda to present it to President Michel Aoun, who accepts it, and asks the resigned Prime Minister and his government to continue conducting business until a new government is formed.
Hassan Diab is expected to address the Lebanese directly at half past seven in the evening local time.
Earlier on Monday, the Lebanese government decided to reconvene its meeting at the Grand Serail, after it was supposed to take place in Baabda Palace.
The meeting’s agenda also changed with the successive resignations of ministers and pressure for more resignations.
On Monday, Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni submitted his resignation from the government, according to a ministerial source told Agence France-Presse, in a step that is the fourth of its kind after the huge Beirut port explosion, which left about 160 people dead, more than six thousand injured and massive damage.
Wazni was preceded by Justice Minister Marie Claude Najm, Environment Minister Damianus Kattar, and Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad, against the backdrop of overwhelming popular anger calling for the abolition of all political structures in the country. The government consists of twenty ministers. Under the law, more than a third of its members must resign in order for it to be dropped.
Since the explosion, demonstrations have raged in the Lebanese capital, as protesters are calling on the government to resign, blaming it for the blast.