Our rockets can hit any n. Israel target-Hizbollah

BEIRUT, May 23 (Reuters) Lebanon's Hizbollah group today said it has thousands of rockets capable of hitting any target in northern Israel, and maybe beyond, should the Jewish state attack Lebanese territory again.

Speaking on the eve of the sixth anniversary of Israel's pullout from south Lebanon, Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group should keep its weapons to defend Lebanon and keep Israel at bay.

Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, is under international and domestic pressure to give up its arms in line with a 2004 U.N.

Security Council resolution.

''Yes, I confess that for long years, since 1992 exactly, the resistance has had a respectable rocket force both in quality and quantity that allows me to say that the whole of the occupied northern Palestine is in the range of the resistance's rockets,'' Nasrallah said in a speech at meeting.

''This north, in its ports, (military) bases and factories is in the range of the rockets of the resistance,'' the cleric said.

''This creates a balance between northern Palestine and southern Lebanon, and Lebanon as a whole.'' He said the group had well over 12,000 rockets in its arsenal but did not specify type or origin.

''There is no need for us to say whether (the rockets) can reach beyond the north (of Israel), we will stay silent on this.'' Nasrallah was presenting the case for his group to keep its weapons, saying the Lebanese army was not strong enough to face the might of the Israeli army.

Israel has for decades launched attacks against Lebanon, first to hunt Palestinian guerrillas and later to crush Lebanese fighters.

Israel ended a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000 after a Hizbollah guerrilla war of attrition. Israeli forces still occupy Shebaa Farms area which the United Nations say is Syrian.

Lebanon and Hizbollah say Shebaa is Lebanese and the group insists on its right to attack Israeli forces there. Hizbollah has launched several deadly attacks there since 2000.

Rival Lebanese leaders are holding talks on the need for Hizbollah to keep its weapons as part of a defence strategy in the face of Israel.

Many anti-Syrian politicians want the group disarmed and for the army to assume sole armed presence in the country, demands that have grown since the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon last year.

The rival leaders are expected to discuss the issue at another round of talks on June 8.

Nasrallah said there was a need for joint defence strategy.

''Our proposal is (to have) the resistance alongside the army in the absence of a comprehensive settlement that ends the state of war.

The (Israeli) threat is present and it is real and possible at any moment and under any pretext,'' he said.

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