Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri arrived Wednesday evening in Rome for talks with Pope Francis and top Italian officials.

A statement issued by Hariri’s press office said the PM-designate will meet the pope on Thursday morning.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil announced Wednesday that the FPM will “fight till the end until the government’s formation,” during a visit to Bkirki at the invitation of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.

“We know that right will win in the end and that the truth is what saves peoples in the eras of major crises… We know that the sacrifices will be big,” Bassil said, ahead of meeting the patriarch.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Wednesday condemned what it called security forces’ “assault on peaceful demonstrators” during the entry of Judge Ghada Aoun into the Mecattaf money exchange firm in Awkar.

In a statement, the FPM said the protesters were present on the public road and that they “did not attack public or private property and did not assault any of the security forces.”

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun managed Wednesday to enter the offices of the Mecattaf money exchange firm in Awkar, after bringing workers to break open a metallic gate, as minor scuffles erupted outside between her supporters and the Internal Security Forces.

Al-Jadeed TV said metal workers who left the firm confirmed that they managed to break open “the internal gate leading to the room containing the data.”

Director of the Rafik Hariri International Hospital, Firass Abiad on Wednesday said the Covid-19 indicators in Lebanon are improving with a decline in the number of cases and deaths.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi on Wednesday reiterated calls for the formation of a government in Lebanon to introduce reforms and prevent politicians from controlling the judiciary.

None of the external proposals to help put together a Lebanese government has yielded concrete and practical results. Not even the reports on possible European sanctions against parties obstructing the government formation, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The Arab Parliament called on Arab states, the international community and international donors to “stand and show solidarity with Lebanon at this critical time the country is passing through, to help it get out of its economic crisis,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

The Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc on Tuesday charged that Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri “has no intention to form a government,” as it said that any moves against Mt. Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun would be a “crime against the Lebanese.”

“The Lebanese are still waiting for the PM-designate to present a methodical cabinet format that clearly shows the distribution of portfolios to sects and to the nomination parties while respecting the standards of competence, specialty and nonpartisanship,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly e-meeting.

The Justice and Administration Parliamentary Committee “holds the resigned government fully responsible to convene immediately and take a decision amending Decree 6433 under penalty of constitutional accountability for dereliction of national duty,” the head of the committee, MP Georges Adwan, said on Tuesday.

“We urgently call on it to do so before it’s too late and within the required deadlines, and to take all measures to inform the U.N. of Lebanon’s stance and its modifications,” Adwan added, following a meeting for the committee.