The families of the Lebanese fighters killed in the Tall Kalakh ambush renewed on Sunday their demand for the expulsion of Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali, reported the National News Agency.

Spokesman for the families Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim said: “We will close the border against your thugs and we will turn to you to expel you from our country.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad in a rare speech Sunday denounced the opposition as "slaves" of the West and called for a national dialogue conference to be followed by a referendum on a national charter and parliamentary elections.

Outlining a reconciliation plan aimed at resolving Syria's 21-month conflict which according to the U.N. has claimed more than 60,000 lives, Assad called on foreign powers to end their support for rebels seeking to topple his regime.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel would erect a new security fence along its armistice line with Syria in order to protect the Jewish state from "infiltrations and terror."

Speaking at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu noted that a new, fortified barrier along Israel's border with Egypt, replacing an older one, was nearly complete.

Syrian opposition activists and bloggers slammed Energy Minister Jebran Bassil's recent statements on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday.

Sources from the Free Syrian Army told the daily: “Bassil, along with his masters in Tehran, Damascus, and Beirut, he will be put on trial for all that they have done against the Lebanese and Syrian people over the past 40 years.”

Social Affairs Minister Wael Abou Faour stated that the recent proposal to establish a joint Lebanese-Syrian committee to deal with the conditions of the Syrian refugees “has raised fears in Lebanon,” reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

He told the daily: “We refuse the formation of a committee that may lead to handing over of Syrian opposition members to the Syrian regime.”

The mother of a Lebanese men held hostage by the Syrian regime urged political leaders on Saturday to exert efforts to release her son Hassan Srour and bring him back to Lebanon.

“I particularly ask General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim to work on this case, as he has helped in retrieving the body of my other son from Syria before,” Amina Turki al-Abboud Srour told the National News Agency.

The customs at the Rafic Hariri International Airport halted on Saturday an attempt to smuggle communication devices connected to satellite technology into Lebanon, the National News Agency reported.

“Three communication devices were discovered at the airport security check in the suitcase of a Syrian national,” the NNA explained, adding that Khalil S. was coming from Turkey via the Turkish Airlines.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad is to make a rare speech Sunday as violence rages in a civil war the U.N. says has killed more than 60,000 people and as U.S. missiles are deployed along the Turkish border.

The U.S. military said deployment of Patriot missiles was to help Turkey defend itself against any threat from neighboring Syria which is in the throes of a deadly 21-month civil war.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Saturday called for a peaceful solution to the conflict roiling Syria, but said the terms of a settlement to end the bloodshed there must be defined by the Syrian people.

"A peaceful solution in Syria is necessary and it is desired by Arab countries and the international community," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi will visit Egypt next week for talks on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, the ISNA news agency reported Saturday quoting an Iranian diplomat.

Salehi will meet with his counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr and President Mohammed Morsi during his two-day visit which begins on January 9, said Mojtaba Amani, the head of Tehran's interests section in Cairo.