Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who had called for a seven-day dialogue, following which open presidential election sessions would be held, said those who rejected his call don't have any convincing reasons or justifications.

"The only explanation is that they don't want to elect a president," Berri said in remarks published Thursday in Tehran-based al-Wifaq Newspaper.

French Special Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian has tacitly proposed the election as president of Army chief General Joseph Aoun in his latest meetings with Lebanese officials, media reports said.

“Several parties who met with Le Drian said that they understood from his remarks that he was proposing Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, albeit without mentioning him by name,” MTV reported.

French Special Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian resumed Thursday his meetings with Lebanese key players for the third day, by meeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkerki.

Le Drian will later meet with the majority of the Sunni lawmakers -- except some MPs including Hezbollah's -- and Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari in Yarze.

Heatwaves, low rainfall and the threat of wildfires are compounding the woes of people in the forested north of Lebanon, a country where economic pain has long taken prominence over environmental concerns.

After a blistering and dry summer, residents of the mountainous Akkar region near the Syrian border are voicing fears about climate change and water scarcity.

Seven people were killed in clashes as a ceasefire fell apart on Wednesday evening in Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp, the Palestinian Red Crescent's Lebanon branch said.

The Ain el-Helweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon, has been rocked by violence since last week.

Israeli airstrikes have killed two Syrian soldiers and wounded six others on Syria's west coast, state media said, quoting a military source.

"At exactly 17:22 (1422 GMT) this (Wednesday) afternoon, the Israeli enemy carried out strikes... from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea targeting some of our air defense sites in Tartus," the official news agency SANA quoted the source as saying.

The 5-nation group on Lebanon -- which comprises the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt-- supports a dialogue proposed by Speaker Nabih Berri to end the presidential impasse, Annahar newspaper said.

Berri had called on the Lebanese parties to engage in seven days of dialogue in parliament followed by open-ended electoral sessions to choose a new president.

French Special Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian resumed Wednesday his meetings with Lebanese key players as France seeks to end a political crisis that has left the country without a president for over a year.

Le Drian met Wednesday with former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and incumbent leader MP Taymour Jumblat in Clemenceau, after an earlier meeting with Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad.

Saleh Sariyeh, 60, a Palestinian from the refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh in Lebanon, has been killed along with his family in the floods that hit eastern Libya.

Sariyeh’s home was washed away in the floods, his nephew Mohammed Sariyeh told The Associated Press.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and its Islamist rival Hamas have voiced support for the fledgling ceasefire in the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, a statement said Wednesday, as Palestine Liberation Organization official Azzam al-Ahmad accused "foreign parties" of stoking the camp's violence.

Clashes have rocked Ain el-Helweh since last Thursday, pitting members of Fatah, which controls most of the camp, against hardline Islamist militants. Hamas has stayed out of the fighting.