NABI SHEET, Lebanon, Feb 16

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the fundamentalist Shiite Hezbollah party, said Friday Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon was an "ugly toad" who does not scare the Arabs anymore than his predecessors.

"Sharon is only an ugly toad with an annoying voice," said Nasrallah at a memorial rally in eastern Lebanon to mark the ninth anniversary of Israel's assassination of his predecessor, Sheikh Abbas Musawi.

"But he does not scare us. Sharon is like (his predecessors) Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu," the turbaned sheikh told a large crowd, who roared back "Allahu Akbar," or God is the greatest.

Nasrallah was speaking hours after his group's guerrillas carried out an attack against Israeli troops in the disputed border region of Shebaa Farms, killing one soldier and wounding two others.

The Hezbollah chief, whose group spearheaded the guerrilla war against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon which ended in May 2000, only briefly mentioned Friday's attack.

He insisted that his group always claimed responsability for its operations and rejected recent Israeli accusations that Hezbollah is masterminding Palestinian attacks on Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"We cannot take the place of the Palestinian people and factions," he said.

Nasrallah also warned "that there is no future for the peace process."

"Our people have made the decision and the choice of the resistance will grow," said the leader of Hezbollah. "If you (Sharon) think about carrying out any acts of genocide or mass exodus against the Palestinian people, you will find that the Palestinians are not alone in this battle," he warned.

Nasrallah urged the Palestinian people to take the example of Palestinian driver Ala Khalil Abu Olba who drove his bus into a crowd waiting at a bus stop south of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, killing eight Israelis – including seven soldiers - and wounding 21 others.

"The Zionists can confiscate your arms and seal the gates of your borders... but can they confiscate your cars, your trucks, your knives?" he asked.AFP