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.

The British embassy in Lebanon on Saturday said that "the UK echoes UNIFIL's call for a cessation of hostilities across the Blue Line and for renewed commitment to implementing U.N. Security Council resolution 1701."

"Yesterday's calm on the Blue Line offers a chance to refocus on the long term solution for peace," the embassy said in a post on the X platform, formerly Twitter, while reposting a message from UNIFIL's commander.

The Israeli army said Saturday that it shot down a surface-to-air missile launched from Lebanese territory at an Israeli military drone.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will call for a legislative session next month, during which parliament would discuss extending the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun, ahead of his planned retirement in January.

"I will call for a session during the first half of December," Berri told al-Jadeed TV, assuring that there are only two options, either the extension of Aoun's term or the appointment of a new army chief. "There is no third option and no assignment (of the highest ranking officer)."

Qatari officials are expected to visit Lebanon and hold very limited meetings to resume discussions over the presidential file and the army chief file, informed sources said.

As calm returned to Gaza and to Lebanon's southern border Friday, former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat remained worried.

In an interview published Friday in al-Joumhouria newspaper, Jumblat said he is cautious about the truce and feared that the war was still at its beginning.