Arab foreign ministers are to hold crisis talks over Syria in Cairo on Thursday, the Arab League said after it rejected changes proposed by Damascus to its proposal to send an observer mission there.

"The Arab League council will hold an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, at the level of foreign ministers, and will be presided by Qatar," Arab League Deputy Secretary General Ahmed bin Hilli told reporters.

Syrian security forces shot dead at least four civilians on Sunday in Idlib province in the northwest and in Homs province in the center, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Among 17 dead on Saturday, the Britain-based watchdog reported seven civilians killed in the Idlib town of Kfar Kharim, close to the Turkish border.

The opposition Syrian National Council announced Sunday a political program aimed at bringing down President Bashar Assad followed by a parliamentary election after a year's transition.

In a statement received by Agence France Presse, the SNC said its goal was to "build a democratic, pluralistic, and civil state by ... breaking down the existing regime, including all of its operatives and symbols."

The U.N. Security Council and the European Union will take “measures” against Lebanon if Lebanon doesn’t fund the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, sources close to French decision-makers warned.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in remarks published Sunday that Lebanon’s rejection to pay its 49 percent share would lead to a “troubling situation that would force the international community to take measures … at the level of the Security Council and the EU.”

President Bashar Assad said Syria would not bow down in the face of mounting international pressure over his lethal crackdown on dissent, in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Assad told the British weekly newspaper he was "definitely" prepared to fight and die for Syria if faced with foreign intervention.

Syria's president has reached "a point of no return" and faces the same fate as former despots in Libya and Iraq, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Saturday.

"I think that he went beyond the point of no return, no way that he will he resume his authority or legitimacy," Barak told a defense summit, predicting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime could fall within months under growing international pressure.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said on Saturday that the war is ongoing in Syria because the stated demands for reform are not the real motives behind war.

“It is important to respond to the international media outlets that are reporting incidents opposite to the facts on ground,” Aoun said during a meeting with a European Catholic delegation.

Speaker Nabih Berri said on Saturday that Lebanon will overcome the crises and maintain its stability.

“Lebanon will overcome crises and preserve its security and stability,” Berri said during a dinner banquet in honor of Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer.

Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Nawwaf al-Moussawi said on Saturday that the developments in the region are more important than those who are seeking to entertain themselves on twitter.

“Those who are seeking to entertain themselves (with the developments in the country), or on twitter… have no place in this battle (that is going on in the region),” Moussawi said.

Dozens of protesters gathered in front of the U.S. consulate in west Jerusalem on Saturday in support of the embattled Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.

Arab-Israeli and Palestinian protesters waved Syrian flags and held portraits of Assad, an Agence France Presse photographer reported. Israeli police and security guards deployed outside the consulate did not intervene.