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CAIRO, Aug 20 (Reuters) Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo today called on the United Nations Security Council to pressure Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon, and called for a truce that would be ''firm and lasting''.

The ministers, meeting at the headquarters of the 22-member Arab League, also welcomed Lebanon's decision to deploy its army along the Lebanese-Israeli frontier following a 34-day war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

''(The ministers) call for the security council to pressure Israel to immediately lift its air, land and sea siege that it imposed on Lebanon,'' the ministers said in a written resolution.

A UN-brokered truce to end the war went into effect on Monday and envisages an international force for south Lebanon and the deployment of Lebanese troops along the southern border.

But the United Nations said the truce could easily collapse if the UN resolution that engendered it was violated further. The United Nations on Saturday condemned an Israeli raid on Hizbollah in eastern Lebanon as a breach of the resolution.

''For every violation, they get a beating,'' Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said. ''I believe our thinking and expectation should be that Israeli continued violations of the agreement to end hostilities will be met in kind.'' None of the Arab League member governments have offered to send troops to south Lebanon, for fear of being dragged into conflict with either the Israelis or Hizbollah.

The Arab ministers' resolution supported the Lebanese army in south Lebanon on its mission to ensure that ''there are only legitimate weapons in this region''.

NO NEWS ON SUMMIT But there was no agreement yet on holding an emergency Arab summit that Saudi Arabia has offered to host in the holy city of Mecca, although consultations would continue, officials said.

A previous call for a summit foundered due to Arab bickering over whether Hizbollah bore any blame for the war, which erupted after the group captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

Hizbollah-ally Syria's foreign minister was conspicuously absent from the meeting. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad irritated many of his fellow Arab leaders last week in a speech they read as critical of their conduct during the war.

The Lebanese government has estimated that the damage, mainly from Israeli air raids against civilian infrastructure, will cost $3.6 billion to repair.

Kuwait's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah, said his government would set aside $800 million to help Lebanon rebuild. In Tehran, a foreign ministry official said Iran also was working on an aid package.

The Arab ministers also discussed their plan to refer the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the UN Security Council.

They plan to send a mission to New York in September to put their case for a comprehensive Middle East settlement based on their own 2002 peace initiative, rejected by Israel, offering peace in return for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders.

Palestinian delegation leader Farouk Kaddoumi also revived an idea to send UN troops to act as a buffer between Israel and a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

''These forces would stay for a year to take part at the end of this period in holding democratic general elections and the formation of a national government,'' Kaddoumi said.

REUTERS SK PM0202