Hizbullah official Nabil Qaouq stated on Sunday that those banking on the Syrian crisis to weaken the resistance will be disappointed.

He said: “The day in which Lebanon’s resistant identity is changed will never come.”

Syria's regime will only look at negotiating with the opposition after "purging" rebels from the country, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday, according to talks with a visiting Iranian official reported by Iran's IRNA news agency.

"The plan for negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition will begin after purging Syria of armed groups," Muallem was quoted as saying after meeting the chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, Aladin Borujerdi, in Damascus.

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa made his first public appearance in over a month on Sunday, following rumors that he had tried to defect and was under house arrest.

Sharaa, who met the head of the Iranian parliament's foreign policy committee, Aladin Borujerdi, was last seen in public at a state funeral for top security officials who were killed in a Damascus bomb blast on July 18.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi condemned on Sunday the various security incidents that had taken place in Lebanon in recent weeks, saying that the situation has reached an unacceptable level.

He said during his Sunday sermon: “We cannot accept the security chaos and the return of militia practices.”

Hundreds of bodies have been found in a town outside Damascus after a ferocious five-day assault by the Syrian army, a watchdog said on Sunday, as activists accused government forces of a "massacre".

At least 320 people have been killed during the offensive by government troops in Daraya, a satellite town of some 200,000 people to the southwest of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The release of one of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria created an air of optimism in Lebanon that the rest of his colleagues may be released soon, especially in light of al-Meqdad clan’s military wing’s release of a number of Syrian captives as gesture of goodwill to the development, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

Widely-informed sources however revealed to the daily that Lebanese officials “have voiced reservations” that the remainder of the pilgrims may be released soon.

The head of the Free Syrian Army Riad al-Asaad accused Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of obstructing the release of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims “because he failed to perform what was asked of him,” reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Sunday.

He said: “The release of the remainder of the pilgrims will not be as easy as some believe because most of them are Hizbullah officials.”

The head of the Syrian Relief Commission, Nabil al-Halabi, criticized the arrest of the commission’s office head Wael al-Khalidi, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday.

He told the daily that al-Khalidi was arrested without an arrest warrant at Rafik Hariri International Airport on Saturday.

Dozens of bodies were found on Saturday in a besieged town near Damascus where Syrian troops have been waging fierce attacks to try to crush rebel holdouts in the capital, a monitoring group said.

At least 15 civilians, including two women and three children, were also killed on Saturday in the town of Daraya, which lies just southwest of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Switzerland has pledged financial support to an independent network of doctors in Syria who are trying to create a field hospital in the conflict-torn nation, an official said Saturday.

Georg Farago, a spokesman for Switzerland's foreign ministry, said Switzerland would contribute 55,000 Swiss francs (45,800 euros, $57,000) and is willing to support other efforts that "aim to lessen the suffering of Syrians".