The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria's opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept country in moves swiftly rejected by Syria.

Arab diplomats "will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks," it said in a statement obtained by Agence France Presse.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri voiced his support for Syria's uprising and urged Muslims in several countries, including Lebanon, to come to the aid of Syrian rebels confronting President Bashar Assad's forces.

"I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to rise to help his brothers in Syria with all that he can," Zawahiri said in a new video message released on jihadist Internet forums, U.S. monitors SITE Intelligence said on Sunday.

A ceasefire was announced on Saturday between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen under the army’s sponsorship after fierce clashes killed and wounded a number of civilians and troops.

The Lebanese army is deployed on the outskirts of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh, namely near Syria Street which separates the rival neighborhoods.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement official Mustafa Allouch denied on Saturday that the arms depot that exploded in Abi Samra neighborhood of Tripoli belonged to his party, according to the National News Agency.

“It's not unusual that some sides always try to accuse us of lies,” he said.

The Victims’ Participation Unit of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon has submitted to STL Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen “73 applications from individuals who claim to have suffered physical, material or mental harm as a result of the 14 February 2005 (bomb) attack” that killed ex-PM Rafik Hariri and 22 other people, the STL said in a statement on Friday.

“A decision on each application will be made in due course by the Pre-Trial Judge,” it noted.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri on Friday called on the Arab countries to recognize the opposition Syrian National Council as the “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people.

Hariri warned about “the dangers of the war waged by the Syrian regime against the growing popular revolution across Syria,” said a statement released by his press office.

President Michel Suleiman on Friday stressed that “Lebanon is in a dire need for dialogue among its components” amid the extraordinary circumstances the Arab region is going through.

Separately, the president called on the state to shoulder its responsibilities in providing employment opportunities for the newly-graduated students and to keep them away from the political distribution of shares.

Forty-two people were killed across Syria on Friday, including security force members, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as anti-regime protesters took to the streets under the banner of "Russia is killing our children."

At least 20 died in in the central protest hub of Homs, among them two children killed by shelling in the Baba Amr neighborhood, the Observatory said.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that his country is ready for any act of provocation by Hizbullah over the deepening crisis in Syria.

During a meeting on Thursday with 15 U.N. envoys in New York, He expressed concern that Hizbullah will use a provocation against Israel as a means of distracting the world from violence in Syria.

Three bombs exploded in Bab al-Tebbaneh region in Tripoli Thursday night marking an increased tension with Jabal Mohsen in the past few days.

“Three bombs exploded in Bab el Tebbaneh” MTV reported.