Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced Friday that his party's fighters are maintaining full preparedness on the eastern border to confront any takfiri assault, alongside the army and security forces, noting that the inter-Christian dialogue that got underway might lead to resolving the presidential crisis.

“I salute the officers and soldiers of the army and the Islamic resistance who are deployed on the border and are protecting the country against Israeli and takfiri terrorist attacks,” Nasrallah said in a televised address during a ceremony held by the Hizbullah-affiliated al-Imdad Islamic Charitable Association.

The Lebanese intelligence had informed its European counterparts that several jihadist groups linked to organizations in Syria or even in Europe will carry out a huge terrorist act on French territories.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, several intelligence agencies, including that of Lebanon, warned European countries that jihadists will target France with terrorist acts.

A Syrian man and a six-year-old boy died in the cold as a major storm dumped snow and rain on Lebanon, bringing misery to thousands of Syrian refugees living in makeshift camps throughout the country.

"We have transported the bodies of two Syrians, a man and a six-year-old boy, who were found dead in Ain al-Joz in the mountains of Shebaa" in south Lebanon, a Red Cross source told Agence France Presse.

U.S. officials are optimistic about electing a Lebanese president before March. A official at the State Department urged the Lebanese parties to agree on a president without foreign interference, and called on them to give up on their international alignments to solve their national issues privately.

The source said in an interview with As Safir: “If the Lebanese parties consulted each other throughout January, then the presidential elections may take place before March.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam and ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement are expected to raise the issue of the mechanism governing the cabinet’s work because of what they described as the “obstruction practiced by ministers of the Kataeb party,” the al-Akhbar daily reported on Monday.

During Thursday's cabinet session, Salam and FPM ministers will bring up the issue of changing the mechanism considering that “things cannot stay the way they are because of the obstruction of some representative parties, mainly the Kataeb, which are hampering a number of cabinet files,” the daily added.

Lebanon is to impose visa restrictions on Syrians for the first time after being overwhelmed by an influx of more than 1.1 million refugees, according to documents published online.

The new regulations, posted on the website of the General Security agency, come into effect on January 5 and lay out various categories, including for tourism and medical treatment.

A Palestinian fisherman was severely wounded on Saturday after the Israeli navy opened fire at his vessel off the coast of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“A fisherman was critically wounded and admitted to the hospital,” a Palestinian medical source said.

A powerful blast from explosives planted in a tunnel under the Old City of Aleppo, in northern Syria, killed or wounded 20 government troops Tuesday, a monitor said.

Jabha Shamiyeh, a new rebel coalition in Aleppo, was behind the blast, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which was not immediately able to give a breakdown of the dead and wounded.

Sheikh Wissam al-Masri announced Tuesday after a brief visit to Islamic State militants in Arsal's outskirts that the group is demanding a border “buffer zone” to “protect” Syrian refugees in the area as well as a “hospital” for treating the wounded and the release of women prisoners from Lebanese jails.

“I met with the Islamic State officials in charge of the file of captives,” Masri said at the Riad al-Solh Square after meeting the families of the Lebanese servicemen held by the IS and the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.

Tens of terrorists have been reportedly killed and wounded when trying to infiltrate into Hizbullah positions in Assal al-Ward of Syria's Qalamun region near Lebanon's border.

According to Ad Diyar newspaper published on Tuesday, Hizbullah and the Syrian army ambushed the terrorist groups inflicting heavy casualties in their ranks.