The ambassadors of the five-nation group on Lebanon, which comprises the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, met Wednesday with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh.

Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Alaa Moussa said the presidential election session on January 9 will be open with consecutive rounds until a president is elected.

The Lebanese Forces and the Change Movement on Wednesday filed a complaint before Lebanon’s State Prosecution against ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and officials from his regime over “the kidnap, forced disappearance and torture of Lebanese citizens.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has ruled out a negative impact for Syria's events on Lebanon.

Berri told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, in remarks published Wednesday, that the developments in Syria are in Israel's interest, and that a U.S.-French brokered ceasefire reached last month has "immunized" Lebanon.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil warned Tuesday that “fear of the departure of a secular regime and the takeover of religious and ideological groups will threaten the presence of minorities in Syria and scare them to the extent of immigrating and leaving their land.”

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s press office commented Tuesday on reports saying some former Syrian regime officials have entered Lebanon or used its territory to travel to other countries.

Hezbollah MP Hassan Ezzeddine on Tuesday accused Israel of “seeking to undermine the ceasefire agreement through its violations.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, who attended this weekend the reponing of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, briefly discussed on the sidelines of the ceremonies, the presidential impasse with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Al-Rahi told a group of journalists in Paris that Macron had expressed France's keenness to help Lebanon, including in filling its presidential void. He said that Macron had told him that "Lebanon is and will remain" in his heart.

Lebanon will form a crisis committee to search for and identify missing and forcibly disappeared persons in Syrian prisons.

Under the request of caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Cabinet Secretary-General Judge Mahmoud Makiya sent Monday a letter to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Social Affairs asking them to urgently coordinate with the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons in Lebanon and with the relevant authorities to identify, document, and facilitate the return of Lebanese detainees freed from Syrian prisons.

A Lebanese man who had spent 33 years in Syrian prisons arrived Monday in his hometown Chekka, after being freed by Islamist-led rebels.

Salim Hamawi is the first Lebanese prisoner to return to Lebanon, but another man, Ali al-Ali, was filmed after being freed from a prison in Hama last week.

Large numbers of Syrians fleeing their country on Monday flocked to the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon and some of them tried to force their way into the country without going through Lebanese General Security measures, General Security said.