Politicians from the country's Western-backed ruling majority and its anti-Syrian opposition on Tuesday publically lashed out at each other over the words Nasrallah used in a speech during the Shiite religious ceremony of Ashura on Saturday.

Nasrallah had declared that Hezbollah - the Shiite movement that leads Lebanon's opposition - has in its possession a 'large number of soldiers' that the Israeli army left behind during the 2006 war.

'We have the heads, the hands, the feet and even a nearly intact corpse from the head down to the pelvis,' Nasrallah said in a live video broadcast following his surprise appearance in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah's stronghold.

One of the strongest responses came from former president Amin Gemayel, a leading member of the ruling majority. 'We regret some of the terminology and some images that many Lebanese found disgusting in Sheikh Nasrallah's speech,' Gemayel said.

'This is a humanitarian issue, no matter if Israel is our enemy or not ... we are talking here about human beings who have families,' a member of the ruling majority who requested anonymity said.

But the Gemayel's comments provoked Nasrallah's followers and MPs and prompted them to harshly criticize, the politician, whose son, Pierre, a minister in the cabinet of Fouad Seniora, was assassinated last year.

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah quickly retorted, saying 'we believed that the emotions and inclinations of His Excellency (Gemayel) have died with time and that he no longer had feelings for enemy leaders.'

'(Israeli) rockets did not stop our march and so will not the bombs of (Gemayel) insults,' Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussawi added.

Meanwhile, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat accused the opposition of carrying out a 'programmed destruction of all political and economic structures in Lebanon.'

Lebanon has been passing through a deep political crisis between the pro-and anti-Syrian camps since November 2006, when six pro- Syrian ministers, mainly loyal to Hezbollah, quit the cabinet, and started calling for the resignation of Seniora, who is backed by the West. -DPA