HEZBOLLAH held a huge “victory” rally in southern Beirut yesterday, drawing more than 500,000 people in a display of strength aimed at domestic and foreign critics who want to see the disarming of the Iran-backed Shia group.

Greeted by an ecstatic crowd of supporters cheering and waving yellow party flags, a smiling Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, made his first public appearance since going into hiding on July 12 at the beginning of the month-long war with Israel.

“We are not frightened of death. We have God on our side,” the cleric said. “Our presence here is not without any danger. However, my heart and soul would not allow me to address you from a distance.” The rally passed peacefully despite intense speculation that Israel might take advantage of Sheikh Nasrallah’s presence to fulfil its pledge to kill the Hezbollah leader.

On Thursday night Israeli reconnaissance drones circled above the rally site. In an interview with Israeli television, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, declined to say whether Sheikh Nasrallah would be targeted.

An assassination attempt would be likely to trigger renewed fighting, causing the collapse of a ceasefire that has held for more than a month.

From all over southern Lebanon, Hezbollah supporters wearing yellow T-shirts and baseball caps inscribed with “Divine Victory” had walked 60 miles (96km) or more to attend the celebration, one mile from Hezbollah’s former headquarters, which was bombed into rubble during the war.

Mehdi Bazzi, 32, said that it had taken him two days to walk to Beirut from Bint Jbeil, on the border with Israel. “I would have crawled on my stomach if Sayyed Hassan had commanded it,” he said, referring to the Hezbollah leader.

Hezbollah’s battle-hardened guerrilla fighters put up an unexpectedly stubborn resistance during the war, fighting Israeli troops to a standstill in the hills and valleys of the deep south and preventing the Israeli Government from reaching any of its stated goals.

In his address, Sheikh Nasrallah said that his fighters had turned four Israeli army brigades into “scared mice”.

“How did they manage to beat this army? With God’s help,” he said.

Although the rally was a huge demonstration of Shia power, other sects were represented, including Christian supporters of Michel Aoun, a former Lebanese army general who forged an alliance with Hezbollah earlier in the year. Hezbollah’s claim of victory against Israel sits uncomfortably with many other Lebanese, who regard the death toll of more than 1,000 civilians and $3.6 billion (£1.9 billion) in damage as a national disaster.

UN Resolution 1701, which brought the war to an end, calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, but Sheikh Nasrallah has adamantly rejected dismantling the group’s military wing.

A reinforced UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as Unifil, reached 5,000 troops last week, a figure that is expected to compel Israel to withdraw the last of its soldiers from Lebanese soil.

The final Israeli troop withdrawal was supposed to take place by the weekend, but the Israeli military said that it was postponing it for a few days because of “technical reasons”. There are only a few hundred Israeli soldiers left in Lebanon.

Major-General Alain Pellegrini, the commander of Unifil, said that he expected the last Israeli soldiers to leave by the end of the month, adding: “We are almost there and, with the assistance of Unifil, the Lebanese Army will very soon be able to take control of the whole of south Lebanon.”

Lebanon has said that it will seek action from the UN Security Council if Israel does not withdraw its forces by Friday.

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