By ANNA JOHNSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 31, 2006; 11:38 PM

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israel's fighter jets roared over Hezbollah strongholds Tuesday, staging mock raids in its strongest show of force since its war with the guerrilla group ended more than two months ago.

The flyovers, which startled many Lebanese with fresh memories of the war, highlight the unsettled tensions between Israel and its northern neighbor, whose political situation has grown increasingly more uncertain.

Hours later, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed the guerrilla group had reinforced its arsenal and said "serious negotiations" were under way over the fate of two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by Hezbollah sparked the monthlong fighting in Lebanon.

The Israeli fighter jets swooped low over south Beirut at least six times in the morning before soaring back into the sky, Lebanese security officials said. The jets could be heard throughout the city, and residents climbed on roofs and balconies to watch.

One woman on her way to work at a clothing store said her hands were shaking after she heard the warplanes because they brought flashbacks of the Israeli airstrikes that pounded her south Beirut neighborhood during the war.

In south Lebanon, officials and witnesses reported Israeli planes staging mock raids over the towns of Nabatiyeh and Tyre. Eight Israeli jets crossed the border and dispersed over southern and central Lebanon, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give press statements.

The Lebanese army issued a statement saying its gunners fired anti-aircraft artillery at the planes in south Lebanon to try to drive them away.

An Israeli military official said the flights were part of routine reconnaissance activity.

"It was not to send any message. We do this on a regular basis," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of military regulations.

The mock raids came only hours after U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council that the Lebanese government had reported that arms were being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria since the end of the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war.

The 34-day fighting left more than 1,000 people dead on both sides, according to the U.N. and Israeli and Lebanese officials. Lebanon's Higher Relief Council, a government group, says the vast majority of those were Lebanese civilians. UNICEF also says most of those killed were civilians, and about a third of them were children.

Of the total deaths, 159 were in Israel, including 39 soldiers.

Israel claimed 800 Hezbollah fighters were killed but that figure was not substantiated, with the group only acknowledging 70 of its fighters were killed.

Lebanon and the U.N. have called on Israel to halt military flights over Lebanese territory, calling them a clear violation of the cease-fire.

Geir Pederson, personal representative in Lebanon of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, expressed concern about the overflights that "constitute a breach of Lebanese sovereignty" and of the U.N. resolution that ended the war.

But Israel contends the flights must continue because arms are still smuggled to Hezbollah, the group has armed personnel in south Lebanon, and the two soldiers whose capture by guerrillas sparked the Israeli offensive have not been released, said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

"In the absence of the implementation of these obligations, Israel is forced to continue intelligence flights over Lebanon to monitor these infringements. If there's not a mechanism to prevent illicit arms transfers, we have to monitor arms transfers. If the Hezbollah presence is not removed, there is a need to observe that presence," he said.

American and European officials have stepped up their demands for Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to the U.N.-brokered cease-fire, but the militant group has repeatedly refused to lay down its arms. The refusal has caused internal struggles as the Lebanese army tries to take control of the south, which has been under Hezbollah's control for decades.

Neither an increased U.N. peacekeeping mission, which currently numbers about 7,300, nor some 15,000 Lebanese troops patrolling a buffer zone in south Lebanon have the mandate or the political will to take Hezbollah's weapons by force.

Nasrallah said in a three-hour taped TV interview Tuesday night that the guerrilla group now has some 33,000 rockets and warned that any attempts by an international force to disarm it would transform Lebanon into another Iraq or Afghanistan.

"The resistance in Lebanon is strong, cohesive, able and ready, and they will not be able to undermine it no matter what the challenges are," he said during the interview on Hezbollah's TV station Al-Manar.

He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to leave the region "within years, not months."

The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said in a taped interview on Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar. "They will leave the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusions from the Vietnam experience."

Nasrallah said a prisoner swap involving the Israeli soldiers and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails "is on track."

Although the U.N. resolution that ended the war called for the soldiers' unconditional release and Israel has refused Hezbollah's offer for a prisoner swap, Israel has exchanged prisoners in the past