BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel's blockade of Lebanon has undermined Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government while boosting the Shiite militia Hezbollah and its backers in Syria and Iran, analysts and diplomats say.

They say a weak central government in Beirut serves to increase domestic political tension and reinforce hardline regional power-brokers in Damascus and Tehran.

"Maintaining the blockade reveals the government's weakness and threatens the political balance," said Jamil Mroue, publisher of the English-language newspaper The Daily Star, in reference to the sea and air quarantine that took effect on July 12.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received UN Secretary General Kofi Annan but ruled out lifting the blockade pending full application of Security Council Resolution 1701 that halted fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah on August 14.

The resolution's terms include a deployment of Lebanese army troops and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah hammered northern Israel with rocket attacks, and the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by the Shiite militia sparked Israel's 34-day assault.

But the "Party of God", as Hezbollah's name means in Arabic, has refused to release the pair unilaterally, while requests by Siniora for Western pressure on Israel have gone unanswered.

The Lebanese premier attended a reconstruction conference in Stockholm Thursday and tried again in vain to get support from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his press office said.

He warned Rice in a phone call that pursuing the seven-week blockade hampered efforts to ease tensions and "risked, by reinforcing radical forces, compromising the application of Resolution 1701".

Meanwhile, opposition figures slam Siniora for allegedly monopolising power in Lebanon but lacking a coherent plan to pull the country out of its latest crisis.

Ibrahim Kanaan, a deputy close to Christian general and opposition leader Michel Aoun, told AFP the government had failed to lead the nation.

"Siniora wants to monopolise power but has no plan and is content to just react to events, leaving Israel in control, and plead with the United States which doesn't listen," Kanaan claimed.

Mroue added: "Israel and the United States are not interested in the fate of Siniora's government. They want to use him to eliminate Hezbollah, at the risk of internal conflict, after they failed to do so by military means."

Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallukh noted in the press that Beirut had also placed hope in diplomatic efforts by Annan, but "until now there has been nothing concrete". The mass-circulation daily An-Nahar asked Thursday: "What is Annan doing?

"If he doesn't get an opening in Israel, he is going to run into the same intransigence when he goes to Damascus and Tehran."

The UN chief is in the midst of an indecisive regional tour aimed at bolstering the fragile August 14 truce.

According to an Arab diplomat who wished to remain anonymous: "Lebanon is once again the victim of hard-core antagonists, Hezbollah and Israel.

"Maintaining the blockade means we have not shed the logic of war and is more grist for the radical force's mill."

The diplomat said the only way out for Siniora was to get Hezbollah to turn the two Israeli soldiers over to the government.

An Israeli leader quoted by army radio has said his country would be willing to negotiate an exchange of prisoners with Lebanese authorities, but not with Hezbollah.

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