BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanese Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday his group was open to dialogue on Lebanon's defensive strategy.

Nasrallah was delivering a speech by video link to welcome five Lebanese prisoners freed from captivity in Israel earlier in the day.

"We, in Hezbollah, are open to every discussion of a strategy for national defense. We insist on that as Lebanon has not yet gone out of the circle of threats and danger and our goal is to protect our country," he said.

Nasrallah, in a rare public appearance, welcomed the five freed Lebanese prisoners after his group handed over the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers.

"The period of defeat is over and the time of victory has arrived," Nasrallah told a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of supporters.

"This people and this nation and this country that gave a clear picture to the world... cannot be defeated," Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah, who moves in secret for security reasons, emerged briefly to embrace the ex-prisoners at a rally in Beirut and declared the exchange a victory for Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Nasrallah said that by not revealing the fates of the captured soldiers his group had been put in a position of strength in negotiating the swap.

"Had their fates been revealed in a tactical error, the negotiations would have taken a different course," he said.

"If we had been defeated in July 2006, Samir and the martryrs would not have been returned today," he later told the crowd appearing on a screen standing in front of a blue curtain with a white dove carrying a banner that said "the Radwan operation."

Hezbollah has dubbed the swap "the Radwan operation after the alias used by notorious Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughnieh, who was killed in a bombing in Syraia in February for which Hezbollah has blamed Israel.

Nasrallah said: "Our only concern is to defend our country, its territory, its water and its people and are open to all discussion for a national defence strategy to do that."

He also emphasized that more concerted efforts should be exerted for reuniting, setting differences aside, heading off sensation and capitalizing on the available opportunity to solve problems within the spirit of solidarity in the national unity government.

Nasrallah called on Lebanese factions to reunite and "overcome sensitivities and move away from grudges and take advantage of the opportunity to address the problems in a spirit of solidarity in the national unity government."

"Within the framework of a national unity government, we are willing to cooperate in dealing with all the issues without exception in order to serve the national interest and unity," Nasrallah added.

This was a reference to the issue of Hezbollah's arms, which has become increasingly controversial domestically after the incidents in May.

The last time Nasrallah gave a public speech was in September 2006 in a victory celebration among the ruins of the southern suburbs of Beirut destroyed during the July-August 2006 war Hezbollah fought with Israel after Regev and Goldwasser had been captured.

He appeared in public for a few minutes among crowds in January during the Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura. -With Agencies