Change and Reform MP Ibrahim Kanaan demanded on Thursday a parliamentary session to grant Civil Defense volunteers full-time employment, considering that any attempt to block the matter “will not pass.”

“Next week will be a landmark concerning the credibility of all parliamentary blocs regarding the Civil Defense demands,” Kanaan said during a press conference from the parliament.

A Syrian was killed and two others were wounded on Thursday by the army in the Bekaa region of Arsal, said the Army Command in a statement.

It said that the army was forced to open fire at the Syrians, who were riding a motorcycle, after they fled from an army checkpoint in the Wadi Hmayyed area.

More than a million people fleeing Syria's war have registered as refugees in Lebanon, the U.N. said Thursday, with many now living in misery in a tiny country overstretched by the crisis.

And the number is swelling by the day. At a crowded UNHCR center in Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, hundreds of Syrian refugees were seen on Thursday queuing to register.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated that the situation in Lebanon is “difficult and bleak”, which is why the time is right for him to run for president, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Thursday.

He told the daily: “We must introduce radical change over how to solve Lebanon's problems.”

Gunmen cheerfully shared coffee and cigarettes with men they have tried to kill with assault rifles, grenades and mortars. Women on balconies hurled rice to celebrate. Men chanted giddily to welcome soldiers deploying to the streets of the northern city of Tripoli.

In a day as joyful as it was unlikely, weary residents of two Tripoli neighborhoods on Wednesday celebrated as hundreds of Lebanese soldiers deployed in the most determined plan yet by the government to stabilize an area that for the past year has been increasingly drawn into the civil war in neighboring Syria.

The military institution announced on Wednesday arresting 33 people in the northern city of Tripoli, as troops continued to implement the security plan in the North.

"The army has arrested 33 people, including 14 Syrians,” the military institution said in an evening communique.

The army on Wednesday arrested fourteen Syrian men in the northeastern town of Arsal on charges of possessing military equipment and entering Lebanon illegally.

“Fourteen Syrians were arrested at army checkpoints in Arsal today on charges of possessing military equipment and entering Lebanese territory illegally with fake IDs carrying Lebanese names,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun announced on Wednesday that he will not be a presidential candidate against Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea, if the latter gained al-Mustaqbal Movement's support.

"If the March 14 coalition and al-Mustaqbal Movement announced their support for Geagea in the presidential elections, I will not nominate myself,” Aoun stated in an interview on Al-Mayadeen television.

Arab Democratic Party politburo chief Rifaat Eid took refuge in the southern suburbs of Beirut before leaving the country to Syria, media reports said on Wednesday.

"Rifaat Eid was transferred in a convoy from (the northern neighborhood) of Jabal Mohsen to the Sfeir region in southern Beirut,” LBCI television said.

The cabinet on Wednesday approved ten administrative appointments after they were postponed Monday over reasons that turned out to be “sectarian,” as it tasked a ministerial committee with studying the two oil exploration decrees.

According to al-Jadeed TV, the cabinet passed 10 appointments, including those of Prosecutor General Samir Hammoud and Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous, who had been serving in caretaker capacity.