The arrest of prominent leaders of the Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaida-affiliate Nusra Front weakened the two groups, which prompted several fighters to defect them and pledge allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), media reports on Saturday.

According to a report published in As Safir newspaper, ISIL would eventually be compelled to engage in a large-scale battle with the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah.

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed pessimism on Saturday regarding the new electoral law, considering that the rival parties will not reach consensus over the matter.

“I expect that the 1960 electoral law to remain for a long time,” Berri's visitors quoted him as saying in comments published in al-Joumhouria newspaper.

The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution Friday asking Israel to pay Lebanon over $850 million in damages for an oil spill caused by an Israeli air force attack on oil storage tanks during its war with Hizbullah in July 2006.

The assembly voted 170-6 in favor of the resolution, with three abstentions. Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia, Micronesia and Marshall Islands voted "no."

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat responded Friday to a threat from the Islamic State group that held him along with two other top Lebanese leaders responsible for the possible execution of three of the captive Lebanese servicemen.

The army on Friday arrested two Syrians in the Bekaa region on charges of involvement in the deadly August clashes in the northeastern border town of Arsal, in which several troops and civilians were killed.

A French-speaking jihadist threatened Friday to execute Lebanese soldiers held hostage by the Islamic State group, saying three prominent anti-IS Lebanese politicians would be responsible for their deaths.

The threat was made in a video Agence France Presse obtained from a Salafist cleric, Wissam al-Masri, who is mediating the release of 25 police and soldiers held by IS and the Syrian branch of al-Qaida the al-Nusra Front.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on Friday on the judges of spiritual courts to speed up religious trials but issue fair rulings by preserving justice.

“It is up to the judges to achieve justice, which is the essence of peace,” al-Rahi told the judges during his yearly meting with them in Bkirki.

A Mustaqbal Movement delegation returned overnight to Beirut aboard a private jet after a short visit to the Saudi capital Riyadh, the state-run National News Agency reported on Friday.

The news agency said that the delegation, which was headed by head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora, discussed with the movement's chief Saad Hariri the latest developments in Lebanon.

Nearly 30,000 Syrian children born as refugees in Lebanon are in a legal limbo, not registered with any government, exposing them to the risk of a life of statelessness deprived of basic rights.

It is a problem that is replicated, to varying degrees, in nations across the Middle East where more than 3.3 million Syrians have found safe haven from the intractable civil war in their homeland.

Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous was bestowed recently with the Golden Order of Merit for Wise Leadership in the Arab World.

The award was granted by the Tatweej Academy for Excellence in the Arab Region Awards and hosted in Dubai.