European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton voiced concern Saturday over the "deteriorating situation" in Lebanon following the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Miqati the previous day.

A statement issued by her office said Ashton "expresses concern at the deteriorating situation in Lebanon" after Miqati's decision to step down.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad paid an unexpected visit to an educational center in the capital Damascus on Wednesday, the presidency said on its official Facebook page.

"President Assad made a surprise visit to the Educational Center for Fine Arts where the education ministry was honoring the families of students who were martyred as a result of terrorist acts, to honor the parents himself," the presidency wrote, alongside photos of Assad at the center.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun rejected on Tuesday any possible alternative to the Orthodox Gathering parliamentary electoral law, saying that the rights of Christians in Lebanon are being usurped.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “I was not informed of any of the discussions that were held in Rome.”

Damascus on Tuesday denied that its warplanes had bombed areas on the Lebanese-Syrian border, accusing “hostile” countries of circulating the media reports.

“The reports circulated by some Lebanese, Arab and international media outlets about Syrian warplanes dropping bombs inside Lebanese territory are false and baseless,” Syria's state news agency SANA quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying.

Israeli aircraft on Monday released scarlet heat balloons over Lebanon's regional waters, in the first such violation in around a year.

"Israeli warplanes dropped more than 30 scarlet heat balloons between Naqoura and Tyre within two hours," state-run National News Agency reported.

The Phalange Party called on Monday for "laying out a military plan to contain unrest-prone areas”, urging the cabinet to reach out to the international community to respond to Syria's threats of bombing Lebanese territories.

"We demand laying out a military plan to contain unrest-prone areas, imposing security and preventing the appearance of gunmen,” the party said in a released statement after the political bureau's weekly meetings, condemning Sunday's attacks on Sunni clerics.

Syrian warplanes bombed the border area with Lebanon for the first time on Monday, a high-ranking Lebanese army official told Agence France Presse, reportedly targeting Syrian rebel positions inside Lebanon.

"Syrian planes bombed the border between Lebanon and Syria but I cannot yet say if they hit Lebanese territory or only Syrian territory," the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Three fuel tankers with Syrian plate numbers were torched on Thursday in an old wheat market in the northern city of Tripoli, the National News Agency reported.

"Seven tankers were attacked and their drivers were detained for a while before being released by the residents of (the northern area of) Bab al-Tabbaneh,” Agence France Presse elaborated.

A divisive debate over Lebanon's electoral law may delay parliamentary elections scheduled for June 9, stoking fears of instability in a country already rattled by the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Nominations opened on Monday but no candidate has yet been registered. Meanwhile, rival political groups have quibbled over how legislative power should be shared out in the multi-confessional country.

President Michel Suleiman said Wednesday that rival leaders should adopt an electoral vote law that is consistent with the Taef accord away from political confessionalism.

MPs should “find a law that is consistent with the Taef and does not take back (the country) to sectarian laws,” Suleiman told Lebanese expatriates in Senegal on the second day of his visit to the West African country before heading to the Ivory Coast on Thursday.