Protesting taxi drivers on Tuesday blocked several vital roads and highways across the country to voice a host of demands.

The drivers blocked the Saifi road, the Beirut-Karantina highway, the Jounieh highway and the main Hamra street following a sit-in at the Riad al-Solh Square.

Hezbollah has backed down on fiery presidential stances at the request of Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh, a parliamentary source from the Hezbollah-led camp said.

“Through the open communication channels between them, Franjieh relayed to Hezbollah’s leadership that there was no need to escalate in the presidential file in a way that embarrassed him and that the party could have done without it because it would obstruct his communication with the hesitant lawmakers,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jubmlat has stopped nominating presidential candidates, as it became obvious that there is no political will to elect a president, PSP MP Wael Bou Faour said Tuesday.

"There is obviously no foreign and domestic will to elect a president, and naming a candidate would destroy his chances," Bou Faour told LBCI.

The Administration and Justice Committee studied Tuesday a law aiming at regulating the status of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and decided to adjourn the discussion until next week.

The Committee's head, Lebanese Forces MP Georges Adwan, said that he will not accept the integration of the refugees and urged Arab states not to return Syria to the Arab fold before the repatriation of the refugees.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met Tuesday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkerki, as he starts an "exploratory tour" to discuss the presidential crisis with Lebanese leaders.

"Our real problem is not the name of the president but that parties are not willing to communicate," Bou Saab answered a reporter in a press conference after the meeting, after he had said that he did not discuss with al-Rahi any names.

The United States has called on Lebanon’s parliament to elect a new president, as the country marks six months without a leader at the helm amid grinding political and economic turmoil.

“The United States calls on Lebanon’s political leadership to move expeditiously to elect a president to unite the country and swiftly enact the reforms needed to rescue its economy from crisis,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Pulling Lebanon out of its presidential vacuum has become imminent, an Arab diplomat said.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Sunday urged a Christian agreement on a new president.

Observers have made a link between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s visit to Lebanon and remarks about the presidential file by top Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad.

Three civilians were wounded Saturday in Israeli air strikes near the Syrian city of Homs, Syrian state media reported, with a war monitor saying a Hezbollah munitions depot was hit.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.