The families of the soldiers and policemen taken captive by militants in the northeastern border town of Arsal blocked on Wednesday several roads to pressure the authorities on meeting the demands of the abductors.

The Dahr al-Baidar and Maaser al-Shouf roads that link Beirut and Mount Lebanon with the eastern Bekaa valley were blocked.

Police have arrested a Lebanese smuggler and scores of Syrians and Palestinians trying to flee to Italy, the state-run National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Around 107 Syrians and Palestinians from the southern refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh were arrested at the port of the northern city of Tripoli, NNA said.

One person was injured on Wednesday when a passenger van came under fire in the northern district of Akkar, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The van was transporting civilians and soldiers on the Bireh road when it was attacked by unknown gunmen at dawn Tuesday.

Speaker Nabih Berri revealed that rival MPs had made progress in agreeing on the public sector wage scale, which he described as the “key” to holding legislative sessions.

Berri spoke to his visitors about the efforts exerted by his aide Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan to approve the raise.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has expressed readiness to train Lebanese troops to help them in the fight against terrorists, An Nahar daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted ministerial sources as saying that al-Sisi told Prime Minister Tammam Salam during a meeting in New York that Cairo was “ready to help as much as it could.”

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday denied claims that his group is preventing the government from negotiating over the Lebanese troops held by jihadist militants.

“It is normal to engage in negotiations and we had negotiated (with Israel) in an indirect manner over captives and the bodies of martyrs. Nowadays, we have martyrs and missing fighters (in Syria) and we have been negotiating for months, because this is the normal approach,” Nasrallah said in a televised address on the latest developments.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc renewed on Tuesday its position that electing a president is a priority over all others.

It stressed after its weekly meeting that this election will pave the way to holding the parliamentary polls.

Families of captive troops blocked the Qalamun highway near Tripoli for three hours on Tuesday and threatened further escalatory steps, as the wife of one of the soldiers urged the prime minister and Hizbullah's chief to act quickly.

“I threaten the sons of every official, because their lives are not more precious than the lives of the troops,” the wife of captive soldier Ali al-Bazzal said at press conference.

The Change and Reform bloc stressed on Tuesday that a new budget for Lebanon should focus on properly equipping the army given the terrorist challenges it is facing.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the bloc's weekly meeting: “An armed takfiri group assaulted Lebanese territories and attacked the army.”

Parliament failed again on Tuesday to elect a new president over the boycott caused by the majority of the March 8 camp's parliamentary blocs amid an initial agreement by March 14 alliance lawmakers to attend legislative sessions aimed at approving important draft-laws.

Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the session to October 9 after lack of quorum