President Michel Suleiman is seeking to call for an extraordinary parliamentary session to allow the legislature to extend its term for only two months during which it would agree on a new electoral law, former Minister Khalil Hrawi said.

Hrawi made his announcement to An Nahar daily published Sunday. The ex-minister had been tasked by Suleiman to brief Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on his latest decision to challenge a law to extend parliament's term for 17 months.

President Michel Suleiman submitted on Saturday an appeal to challenge the parliament's decision to extend its mandate, calling on the Constitutional Council to “legally and neutrally” study this file.

“I wish the Council studies the challenge by adopting an entirely neutral and legal perspective to allow the parliament to consider shortening the extension and to push for adopting a new electoral law,” Suleiman urged in a speech he gave after with submitting the challenge before the Constitutional Council.

The parliament's decision to postpone the upcoming elections and extend its term 17 months because of deteriorating security conditions related to Syria's turmoil was officially announced and published in the official gazette.

Friday's extension decision comes after rival blocs in the legislature failed to agree on a new elections law.

Influential Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi has called on Sunni Muslims to join the rebels fighting the Syrian regime, as he lashed out at Lebanon's Hizbullah for sending its men to fight the mostly-Sunni insurgents in Syria.

Qaradawi, a controversial figure in the West but who has millions of supporters, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, also hit out at Iran for backing the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.

Tension was high on Saturday along al-Wazzani region in southern Lebanon as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and Lebanese army deployed heavily in the area after Israeli soldiers crossed the barbed wire border fence.

Israeli troops crossed the fence, infiltrating 10 meters into an area along al-Wazzani River after expressing reservations over a cleaning process by a Lebanese bulldozer of the riverbed.

A number of rockets fired from the Syrian side of the border landed in Lebanese border regions overnight, reported the National News Agency on Saturday.

It said that four rockets landed on the eastern mountain range near al-Shaara region between the towns of Sarein al-Fawqa and Sarein al-Tahta.

Efforts to form a new government are set to be revived in light of settling the dispute over the extension of parliament's term and the consequent postponement of the parliamentary elections, reported the daily An Nahar Saturday.

Informed March 14 political sources told the daily that the new efforts will focus on forming a political cabinet not comprised of figures affiliated with political parties.

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim returned to Lebanon from Turkey Friday night where they discussed the case of the Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria's Aazaz region, reported the daily An Nahar Saturday.

Concerned sources told the daily that they achieved “significant progress in this case, which may lead to the pilgrims' release within a week should no new obstacles thwart these efforts.”

President Michel Suleiman is expected to challenge parliament's decision to extend its mandate for 17 months, reported the daily An Nahar Saturday.

He believes that Friday's extension contradicts several constitutional articles, adding that the reasons for it are “not convincing and they do not justify the failure to stage the parliamentary elections,” it said.

French authorities charged a Franco-Lebanese businessman Friday at the center of a high-profile political scandal, a day after detaining him on suspicion he was trying to flee the country, a legal source said.

On Thursday, police detained Ziad Takieddine on suspicion that he was making plans to flee the country, despite a ban on foreign travel, by trying to obtain a diplomatic passport, said a source close to the case.