Energy Minister Jebran Bassil denied on Saturday that the Free Patriotic Movement has called for the closure of the border with Syria, saying the government should put an admission ceiling for refugees crossing to Lebanon.

During a press conference he held at his residence in his hometown of Batroun, Bassil said he urged the cabinet on Thursday to control the influx of refugees and limit the burden on the Lebanese state. “We never said we wanted to expel them.”

The aging Christians holed up inside a retirement home in the devastated northern Syrian city of Aleppo have no light, no telephone lines, and little idea of what is happening in the outside world.

But fellow Christians and rebel fighters still ensure they do not go hungry, bringing the dozen or so residents whatever food they can every day.

A shell hit a Christian area of Damascus and a car bomb exploded elsewhere in the Syrian capital on Saturday, a watchdog said, as clashes raged around an airport in the north of the country that rebels have sought to capture.

"A shell was fired on Bab Tuma," a Christian quarter of Damascus's old city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human rights, without specifying exactly where it landed or where it was fired from.

European Union Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst expressed on Saturday her “understanding” of Lebanon's rejection to set up camps for refugees escaping the violence in Syria.

Eichhorst told An Nahar daily that she “understood the stance of the government to reject the establishment of camps” but stressed “the importance of preparing for the possible influx of more refugees.”

Groups close to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime came to Lebanon in a mission to perform terrorist activities, LBCI television reported on Friday.

"These groups have resided in a northern area with Christian-majority,” LBCI said, adding that the armed clans are coordinating their activities with local political forces in the north.

U.S. troops began arriving in Turkey on Friday to man Patriot missile batteries against threats from neighboring Syria, where the 21-month conflict between the regime and rebels has escalated.

Syrian air and ground forces were pounding insurgents dug in outside Damascus in a ferocious offensive being waged a day after a car bomb in the north of the capital killed at least 11 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Lebanese Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani rejected on Friday calls for the deportation of Syrian refugees out of Lebanon, expressing that it is a “duty to receive them and provide them with basic needs”.

“No politician or citizen in Lebanon has the right to harass Syrian refugees or demand their deportation,” the Mufti said in a released statement.

The benches in Hawas park in the battered city of Aleppo are now mere metal skeletons, the wood stripped off by residents to burn so they can keep warm in the northern Syrian winter.

After months of battles devastated much of the city, the country's former commercial hub, the people of Aleppo are trying to lead as normal a life as possible, despite the deadly conflict that has raged for more than 21 months.

The parents of the fighters killed in Tall Kalakh ambush and those of the Islamist inmates in Roumieh prison held a sit-in on Friday in front of Prime Minister Najib Miqati's residence in Tripoli, demanding the freeing of the detained and unveiling the fate of the missing fighters in Syria.

"We will hold another sit-in this Sunday near the al-Arida crossing to press on these issues,” the spokesman of the families of the fighters Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim announced on behalf of the protesters.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly welcomed on Friday the Lebanese cabinet's decision of maintaining an open border with Syria, saluting its adoption of a “comprehensive plan” to meet the needs of refugees.

“We praise the government's continuous efforts to abide by its international obligations towards refugees,” Connelly said in a statement released after she met with Energy Minister Jebran Bassil.