The Lebanese parliament finally voted on a new president on Thursday following two years of deadlock. Joseph Aoun the head of the country's armed forces won a majority of the votes.

Lebanon elected army commander Joseph Aoun as the country’s first president in more than two years, picking a US-backed candidate in a sign of Iran’s waning influence in the region.

General Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese army commander who was elected president on Thursday, kept his military on the sidelines of a recent war between Israel and armed group Hezbollah, ordering it to prioritise civil peace even as troops were killed.