Lebanon’s government announces it will disarm the group before the end of the year, which Hezbollah says it will ignore.

Lebanon had been hoping this summer would see the return of tens of thousands of expats and tourists to the crisis-hit Mediterranean nation, spending money in resorts and restaurants and attending festivals such as a famed one in an ancient Roman city.

Lebanon's cabinet has told the army to draw up a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms in a challenge to the Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, which rejects calls to disarm.