BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanese leaders on Thursday resumed talks on whether the Syrian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah should be disarmed, amid regional tensions sparked by the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza.

Israel has launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip to find the captured soldier, threatened to hunt down Damascus-based Palestinian militants and gone on high alert for possible retaliation, including from Hezbollah.

Lebanon's 14 most influential political leaders were to discuss the final item on the agenda of a roundtable national dialogue launched in early March: a national defense strategy in the face of a potential threat from Israel.

The ninth round of talks comes amid international concern over the Middle East that prompted UN chief Kofi Annan to lead calls for restraint to ensure the conflict does not spread after Israel sent warplanes over northern Syria.

"Israel sent a regional warning to Damascus where Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal is based, by flying Israeli warplanes over a presidential palace of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad," said the leading Beirut daily An-Nahar.

It also noted that Israeli forces had gone on a state of alert along the border with Lebanon.

The pro-Syrian newspaper As-Safir newspaper said that Israel with its confrontation with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas had "invaded the roundtable talks to remind participants that it is a main player ...

"The Israeli war also forces some participants to re-evaluate their positions on the source of danger (Israel), and the available weapons (Hezbollah) ... which should be protected in order to counter such a danger."

Members of the anti-Syrian majority in parliament maintain that Lebanon's defence strategy should be placed in the hands of the state and regular army -- rather than with an armed guerrilla group.

But pro-Syrian groups, led by Hezbollah which is represented in the government, have so far rejected UN Security Council demands for the militia to disarm and calls from within Lebanon to merge its forces with the regular army.

Only a paramilitary structure like Hezbollah's military wing -- which claims to have more than 12,000 rockets in its arsenal -- could protect Lebanon from mighty neighbor Israel, according to the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah, which was instrumental in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, says it wants to hold onto its weaponry to liberate the Shebaa Farms, a disputed Israeli-occupied border area.

Lebanon has been deeply divided between pro- and anti-Syrian camps since the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri that has been widely blamed on Syria although Damascus denies the accusation.

Domestic and international protests following Hariri's murder forced Syria last year to end its almost three decades of military presence and political domination in Lebanon.

On Wednesday, Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a key pro-Syrian figure and initiator of the national dialogue, paid a surprise visit to Damascus to meet with the Syrian president.

Beirut newspapers speculated the talks could lead Syria to finally "open Damascus's doors" to Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora whose long-awaited visit to the Syrian capital could ease tensions between the two neighbours.

In seven rounds of talks since March 2, the conference has agreed on an international trial for Hariri's murderers, the dismantling of remaining Palestinian militant bases in Lebanon, and the normalization of relations and demarcation of the border with Syria.

But the last three points have not been implemented as they require the cooperation of Damascus, which has rejected calls to define the border in the Shebaa Farms area before Israel pulls out of the territory.

Copyright © 1999-2006 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.