LEBANON - July 19 - Israeli Force Will Backfire, PM Warns.

Lebanon's embattled PM says Israel's fierce military offensive will backfire, suggesting it can bolster support for the Hizbullah group rather than undermine it. Fouad Siniora said, in an interview with the FT, the bombings, which have killed 300 people in a week and caused massive destruction, were more violent than during Israel's 1982 invasion. "The result of this has been unprecedented in Lebanese history", he said. "What's happening has brought the country to its knees . . . and rebuilding Lebanon will take years". Pointing out that the 1982 invasion led to the formation of Hizbullah, the Shiite movement that triggered the current crisis with the capture of two Israeli soldiers last week, he said: The mentality of using force has proved it doesn't yield results in Lebanon?.?.?.?If you carry on doing the same thing excessively you get the opposite effect". Siniora called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the provision of humanitarian aid. At least 58 people, all but one a civilian, died in attacks across Lebanon on Wednesday while the death toll also rose in Israel with rocket attacks on Nazareth and Haifa. Lebanese officials say attacking the country risks rallying more people to Hizbullah and weakening the animosity towards the party that had been growing during the past week, particularly among Sunni Muslims and Christians. Siniora, who has made clear that he believes Hizbullah's action was "not right", said if Israel sent in ground troops, the army would no longer stand on the sidelines. He claimed that Syria and Iran, the main backers of Hizbullah, "are not to be considered absent from what's happening in the country". He would not, however, be drawn on the role that the two states were playing. Israel has held the Lebanese government responsible for reining in Hizbullah. But the prime minister's ability to control Hizbullah's military wing - said to be more powerful than the army - is constrained. Siniora said contacts with Hizbullah were under way through Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament and leader of Amal, Lebanon's smaller Shiite party. But efforts to convince the group of the conditions necessary for a ceasefire, which include sending the army to Hizbullah-controlled southern Lebanon, had not yielded a compromise. Siniora said he was seeking a comprehensive solution that would involve extending the state's sovereignty over all Lebanon and settling all outstanding disputes between his country and Israel, including those over land and prisoners. Siniora, however, made clear that Lebanon could no longer return to the status quo that preceded the Hizbullah operation. "It would be a major crime to Lebanon if we returned to the status quo", he declared. He was referring to the return of the occupied Shebaa farms, a strip of border land that Beirut claims sovereignty over but that the UN says belongs to Syria, not Lebanon, and the release of Lebanese detainees in Israeli jails. "It's high time to really make clear the agendas of all concerned", he said. Amid rising discontent in Lebanon over the muted response of leading Arab states to the conflict, Siniora said Arab support was "less than we really need and deserve". He also expressed disappointment with the international community's reluctance to pressure Israel to stop the offensive. "I'm disappointed with the reaction of world public opinion - it expresses sympathy with Lebanon but people are not asking the right questions", he said. "The abduction of soldiers is not a right cause but no one talks about the Lebanese detainees in prison (in Israel) as if they were a bunch of sheep". He added, however, that his main task at this point was to rally people and not to enter into disagreements, whether within Lebanon or with the outside world. "At this point many (people) are delaying posing the questions and the issue of who is responsible - what matters is stopping the aggression, accepting a ceasefire and dealing with the issues that preceded it - the abduction of the two soldiers". Separately, Turkey's FM Abdullah Gul, told the FT that the Israeli action would have negative consequences across the entire Middle East. "It will worsen the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, everywhere. What is happening is not good for Israel. They think they can win, but they are not. They are weakening".