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

Israeli forces crossed on Tuesday the demarcation line at Lebanon's Ross Mountain at the northern edge of the occupied Shebaa farms, and combed the area, the state-run National News Agency reported.

At dawn, four Israeli soldiers crossed a distance of 30 meters into the liberated zone at the Ross mountain. They combed the area for half an hour and then retreated.

A Lebanese soldier was killed on Tuesday after gunmen opened fire on an army post in al-Beddawi near the northern city of Tripoli, the military announced.

An army communique said troops responded to the 4:00 am attack by opening fire on the perpetrators, adding that military units were pursuing them to arrest them.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on Tuesday for the election of a president, the implementation of the Constitution and the control of illegitimate weapons, urging the newly-inaugurated Grand Mufti to protect Lebanon's common Christian-Muslim culture.

“It is our duty as religious officials not to remain silent to violations of the country's principles and constitutional framework,” said al-Rahi during talks with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan at Dar al-Fatwa.

The continued captivity of soldiers and policemen by jihadists is threatening to spiral out of control after their families took escalatory measures and Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said the authorities would not negotiate with the terrorists unless they provide guarantees that they wouldn't execute more captives.

“We want absolute guarantees that the abductors will stop killing (more captives) before we discuss anything else,” al-Mashnouq told As Safir daily in remarks published on Tuesday.

The Lebanese Army's chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Walid Suleiman is scheduled to travel to Moscow next week to discuss with Russian officials military assistance to Lebanon.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, who recently visited Russia, said Suleiman will follow up the meetings that he held with the Russian officials.