The idea of electing a “third” presidential candidate other than Suleiman Franjieh and Jihad Azour is “still running into Hezbollah’s stance” and there are no indications that a president will be elected anytime soon, a media report said.

French Special Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian will arrive in Beirut Tuesday evening on an official visit that will last until Friday, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Monday.

A senior Hezbollah legislator said Monday that the Iran-backed group will compensate Lebanese whose homes along the Lebanon-Israel border were damaged by Israeli shelling and strikes.

Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops have clashed along the border since Oct. 8, stoking fears that the Hamas-Israel war in the Gaza Strip will spill over into the rest of the region. Though the clashes have been intense, with both combatants and civilians killed on both sides, they have remained largely contained to areas near the border. Hezbollah was not officially a party to the four-day truce between Hamas and Israel that took effect Friday, but calm has largely prevailed on the Lebanon-Israel border since then.

Cautious calm prevailed over the border area in south Lebanon Monday, the last day of a four-day cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

The calm was interrupted overnight by Israeli shelling on the southern border town of Marwahin.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will not call for a cabinet session that would discuss the term extension of the army chief before Hezbollah announces its stance, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said.

The daily reported Monday that Mikati needs to know whether Hezbollah would support its ally, the Free Patriotic Movement, and refuse the extension of Gen. Joseph Aoun's term ahead of his planned retirement in January.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has stressed Lebanon’s reliance on the efforts of friendly countries for restoring peace in south Lebanon.

In an interview published Monday in al-Joumhouria newspaper, Mikati hoped that friendly countries would succeed to restore peace and calm along the southern border.

French Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian will visit Beirut next week in a bid to reactivate the presidential election file, media report said on Sunday.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday voiced rejection of “confining the election of a president to a person, a project or an influence-related motive.”

Moreover, al-Rahi said he does not accept any attempt to “harm the army’s unity and stability and its confidence in itself and in its command, especially that the country and its security are on the mouth of a volcano.”

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Israeli fire hit one of its patrols in the country's south on Saturday, despite a Hamas-Israel truce largely quietening the Lebanon-Israel frontier.

"At around 12:00 pm, a UNIFIL patrol was hit by IDF (Israeli army) gunfire" in the vicinity of Aitaroun, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said in a statement.

Lebanese farmer and minibus driver Abdallah Abdallah went back to his village near the Israeli border on Saturday to find that weeks of bombing had badly damaged his house and destroyed his tractor.

"What can I say? Israel has always been criminal, it has always targeted our houses," said Abdallah, 50, his face weary as he pointed to gaping holes in the walls of his two-story home in Aitaroun, just across from an Israeli military position.