Kataeb Party Leader Amin Gemayel stressed that coordination is ongoing with his party's key March 14 ally al-Mustaqbal Movement, revealing that priority at this stage is to safeguard Lebanon from the repercussions of the dramatic developments in the region.

“I agreed with head of al-Mustaqbal movement MP Saad Hariri on the importance of staging the presidential elections swiftly,” Gemayel told al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Tuesday.

In parallel with the escalation of protests by the families of the kidnapped soldiers, an agreement between the Qatari delegation and Islamic state group took place, a media report said on Monday.

The agreement was to free three of the kidnapped soldiers in return for the freedom of Islamist prisoners in Roumieh but it ended with failure due to the presence of dangerous suspects' names on the list of the Islamic State.

The Kataeb Party called on Monday for the implementation of a "major operation" to close the border between Lebanon and Syria after the violent clashes between Hizbullah and al-Nusra Front.

It also called for the "cessation of the parallel issues that make the presidential election a marginal issue."

Hizbullah repulsed on Sunday an attack by al-Nusra Front on ten of its positions and they didn't lose any of their positions, but Ain Saat for more than an hour.

Hizbullah managed to thwart the attack on its other positions. Eight of its fighters were killed, while al-Nusra Front stated that it attacked a position and killed eleven fighters of Hizbullah.

Several rockets targeted on Monday the Bekaa town of Hermel, the state-run National News Agency reported.

According to NNA, two rockets fired from Lebanon’s Eastern Mountain range, on the Lebanese-Syrian border, landed on the residential area in Hermel.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted on Monday that the attack launched by gunmen from Syria against Hizbullah positions in the eastern region of Brital demonstrates the need for the government to take the necessary action to guarantee the safety of Lebanese territories.

He told the Central News Agency: “The government should take a binding decision to force Hizbullah to withdraw from Syria.”

The families of the soldiers and policemen abducted from the Arsal region briefly blocked on Monday the Tarshish-Zahleh road in an attempt to pressure the government to exert more efforts to release their loved ones.

They also blocked the Dahr al-Baydar road.

Security forces located the whereabouts of notorious Tripoli militants Shadi al-Mawlawi and Osama Mansour, media reports said on Monday.

According to the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, security forces are determined to detain the two fugitives, who took the Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood of the northern city of Tripoli as their hideout.

The captors of the soldiers and policemen abducted from the northeastern region of Arsal in August have changed their conditions to release the hostages, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Monday.

Sources monitoring the situation told the daily that the Islamist militants are no longer demanding the release of fellow Islamists from Roumieh prison as a condition for freeing the captives.

Sally Greige, 24, was crowned on Sunday Miss Lebanon 2014 in a huge ceremony held at the Casino du Liban in Maameltein north of Beirut.

Miss Lebanon 2013, Karen Ghrawi handed over the crown to Greige, who reserved her spot in Miss World pageant that will be held in London on December 14.