France's top diplomat and defense chief arrived on Monday in Lebanon, where a fragile truce since late November ended intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu met with Lebanon's army chief Joseph Aoun, and on Tuesday are due to visit U.N. peacekeepers near the Israeli border.

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah condemned Monday the repeated Israeli violations of a ceasefire reached in late November, claiming that the ceasefire did not include any terms allowing these violations.

"We know this enemy and we know that the only way to confront it is by the resistance's weapons and the people-army-resistance equation," Fadlallah said, adding that the credibility of "those who want sovereignty" is now at stake.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Monday that he will impose economic sanctions on a donation campaign led by Hezbollah for the victims of the September pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that the ruling "establishment" in Lebanon is still entrenched and coherent.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has called for parliament to convene on January 9 to elect a president, in an attempt to break a gridlock of over two years and reactivate the country's crippled state institutions.

The session will be open with successive rounds. "We might hold several rounds in the same session, what's important is for parliament to elect a president and for MPs to shoulder their responsibilities," Berri told An-Nahar newspaper, in remarks published Monday.

The Lebanese Civil Defense has been handed over at the Masnaa border crossing the bodies of two Lebanese men who were shot dead in Syria's Homs in addition to a wounded Lebanese national.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has said that he will be "decisive" in the January 9 presidential election session.

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.