Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion in Lebanon

Hezbollah fighters are ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon, the group's deputy leader Naim Qassem said on Monday in his first public address since Israel killed its chief Hassan Nasrallah last week.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

"We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement," he said in an address from an undisclosed location.

He was speaking as Israeli airstrikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week-long wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about a 1,000 Lebanese and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

The losses were Hezbollah's heaviest since Iran's Revolutionary Guards created the group in 1982 to counter an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Nasrallah had built it up into Lebanon's most powerful military and political force, with wide sway in the Middle East.

Now it faces the challenge of replacing a towering leader who was a hero to supporters because he stood up to Israel even though the West branded him a terrorist mastermind.

"We will choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity...and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis," Qassem said.

Qassem said Hezbollah's fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km into Israeli territory and were ready to face any possible Israeli ground incursion.

"What we are doing is the bare minimum...We know that the battle may be long," he said. "We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006 in the face of the Israeli enemy," he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

The possibility that Israel's next move might be to send ground troops and tanks over the border is on many minds and it has given no indication it will rein in the most powerful and technologically advanced military in the region.

Israel says it will do what ever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely. It has not ruled out a ground invasion and its troops have been training for it.

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Monday his government was ready to fully implement a UN resolution that had aimed to end Hezbollah's armed presence south of the Litani River as part of an agreement to stop the war with Israel.

Mikati said the Lebanese army could deploy south of the river, which lies about 30 km from the country's southern border.

Hours before Hezbollah's Qassem spoke, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon in the southern city of Tyre on Monday. Another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders died in a strike in central Beirut - the first such hit inside the capital's limits.

"There is nothing else to say or add, except God save Lebanon," Beirut resident Nawel said. "What will happen to me is the same as what can happen to anyone."