Interior Minister Nouhad Mashnouq stressed on Monday that the state will not back down on its demand to be handed over all fugitives who are taking the southern Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh as their safe haven.

“The chance will be given in the first stage for any political solution, but we will not back down,” Mashnouq told As Safir newspaper.

Speaker Nabih Berri has discussed with al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri the talks between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal representatives, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Monday.

The daily said that Berri's short meeting with Hariri was held in Riyadh over the weekend when the speaker extended his condolences on the death of Saudi King Abdullah.

Israel has sent a strong warning to Lebanon that it would respond to any attack by Hizbullah on Israel whether on its territories or abroad, Western diplomatic sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published on Monday that the warning was delivered to the Lebanese authorities by several ambassadors based in Lebanon.

Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault will visit Lebanon at the beginning of February to resume his initiative to resolve the ongoing presidential deadlock.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday that the French diplomat's visit aims at reviving his initiative and contacts with Lebanese officials.

An Internal Security Forces officer was killed at dawn Monday after a gunman opened fire at him in the northern district of Zgharta, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said Ghassan Ajaj died after the armed man shot him near his house in the town Meryata.

The parties of the rival March 8 and March 14 camps closed ranks on Sunday to defeat independents led by Hanna Gharib in the elections of the league of public secondary school teachers.

However, the incumbent chief Gharib and another member managed to grab two seats.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan called on Lebanon's Sunni Muslims on Sunday to stand by the Lebanese army, rejecting the use of any arms domestically other than those of the military institution.

“We are the people of centrism and moderation and we must confront the attacks through standing by the army and the security institutions,” said Daryan during the first visit to the Bekaa province since he assumed his post.

Reports circulated Sunday in the Bekaa about a militant assault on Hizbullah's posts in Brital's outskirts turned out to be untrue, following two days of deadly clashes between the Lebanese army and extremist groups in the nearby area of Ras Baalbek.

“The takfiris have waged an armed attack on Hizbullah's posts in Ain Saa in the mountainous outskirts of Brital and Baalbek,” state-run National News Agency reported, adding that the area was witnessing “fierce clashes with rocket-propelled grenades and artillery shells.”

The army detained on Sunday 17 Syrians in raids carried out in the town of al-Marj in the west Bekaa for the suspected formation of a terror group and for illegally entering the country.

The military command said in communique that the “12 Syrian national are suspected of establishing a terror group.”

The army targeted on Sunday militants entrenched in Madinat al-Malahi area on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

According to the state-run National News Agency, the army targeted with heavy artillery suspicious movements by armed men in Madinat al-Malahi area in Arsal's Wadi Hmeid village.