Lebanese security forces have apprehended an armed group in the northern city of Tripoli that kidnapped a group of 26 Syrians who were recently smuggled into Lebanon, two Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information with the media.

The Syrians included five women and seven children, and security officials are working to return them to Syria.

An Egyptian activist wanted by Cairo on charges of incitement to violence and terrorism, Abdulrahman al-Qardawi, was detained by Lebanese security forces after crossing the porous border from Syria, according to two judicial and one security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to to talk to the press.

Al-Qardawi is an Egyptian activist residing in Turkey and an outspoken critic of Egypt's government.

Syria's embassy in Lebanon suspended consular services Saturday, a day after two relatives of deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad were arrested at the Beirut airport with allegedly forged passports.

Also on Saturday, Lebanese authorities handed over dozens of Syrians — including former officers in the Syrian army under Assad — to the new Syrian authorities after they were caught illegally entering Lebanon, a war monitor and Lebanese officials said.

The wife and daughter of one of deposed Syrian president Bashar Assad's cousins were arrested Friday at the Beirut airport, where they attempted to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese judicial and security officials said. Assad's uncle departed the day before.

Rasha Khazem, the wife of Duraid Assad — the son of former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of Bashar Assad — and their daughter, Shams, were smuggled illegally into Lebanon and were trying to fly to Egypt when they were arrested, according to five Lebanese officials familiar with the case. They were being detained by Lebanese General Security. Rifaat had flown out the day before on his real passport and was not stopped, the officials said.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has called for a parliamentary session to elect a president on January 9. The session will be open with successive rounds until a president is elected, Saudi news channel Al-Hadath said.

The Saudi channel said sources quoted Berri as saying that the Quint - which comprises the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt - has supported Lebanon to elect a president. "Now we have to carry out our duties."

The co-chair of the five-party ceasefire monitoring committee, U.S. general Jasper Jeffers, has received a phone call from caretaker PM Najib Mikati, who protested against Thursday's Israeli incursion into Wadi al-Hujeir, Qantara and Adsheet al-Qusayr, a prominent political source said.

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein will carry a "clear message" to Lebanon's authorities during his upcoming visit to the country and will ask them to "reject any role for Iran in reconstruction, neither through Iranian firms nor through aid," a media report said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday denied media reports claiming that Lebanon has been indirectly informed that Israel will not withdraw from south Lebanon after the end of the 60-day period stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Druze leader Walid Jumblat wrote Friday on the X platform that "the Lebanese Foreign Ministry has finally woken up from its deep sleep and noticed that a change has happened in Syria."

The Israeli military said it conducted air strikes on Friday targeting "infrastructure" on the Syrian-Lebanese border near the village of Janta, which it said was used to smuggle weapons to the armed group Hezbollah.

"Earlier today, the IAF (Israeli air force) struck infrastructure that was used to smuggle weapons via Syria to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon at the Janta crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border," the military said in a statement.