Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has said at the end of his visit to Qatar that the Lebanese should focus on achieving reconciliation, launching national dialogue and adopting a new electoral law.
“We have to start as soon as possible with (problem solving methods) and sit at the dialogue tableÉand adopt the elections law that gives everyone his right,“ Suleiman told members of the Lebanese community in Doha during an Iftar service Tuesday, “Naharnet“ reported.
He said that Lebanon’s political and military power would only be built through dialogue between political leaders.
“We have to engage in dialogue to build Lebanon’s political and military strength,“ he said.
The Lebanese president also stressed the importance of solving the issue of appointments to different posts in the public sector.
About Israeli threats, Suleiman said: “We should all remain united in the face of Israeli terrorism and the recent Israeli threats prove that israel has bad intentions against Lebanon.“
Suleiman had traveled to Qatar on Monday. He returned to Beirut on Tuesday night.
He is scheduled to make an official visit to Saudi Arabia early in October, the daily “Al-Bayrak“ reported on Wednesday.
The report said the forthcoming visit would be at the invitation of the Saudi Monarch King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.

Resistance Brings Sovereignty
Meanwhile, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said on Tuesday that the current conflict was between two projects. “The first is the resistance that embraces all the meanings of liberation, preservation of sovereignty, protection of the peoples’ will to choose away from tutelage and confronting aggressive Israel.
The second project is the US-Israeli scheme to reshape the region’s policies based on obedience to Israel, in the framework of the “new Middle East“ that takes into consideration US interests,“ “Al-Manar“ quoted Kassem as saying.
“The American scheme has been hit by successive blows in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and facing Syria,“ Sheikh Kassem said, recalling how “the Resistance in Lebanon alongside its people and army was able to achieve the biggest strategic victory against Israel since the creation of the Zionist entity, what astonished the world as well as those involved in the US scheme.“
Hezbollah official stressed that the consecutive victories on Israel since the 2000 liberation until the July 2006 victory and Operation Al-Redwan have proved that the will of the peoples is stronger than the abilities of the arrogant regimes, even if they close ranks.
His eminence added that the resistance today does not belong to a single group. “The Resistance now comprises all active political forces that believe in standing up to the Israeli scheme. Resistance is a defensive act and reaction to occupation“ his eminence emphasized.

More Security for Tripoli
In other News, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora proposed a six-point plan on Tuesday to develop the city of Tripoli and the North. The plan’s main pillar was enforcing security and achieving stability. “Tripoli and its citizens have a right to security ... Nothing could justify negligence in providing security,“ he told Tripoli MPs and politicians, who visited him at the Grand Serail in Beirut, “Daily Star“ reported.
Siniora vowed that his Cabinet would not spare any effort to resolve the crisis in Tripoli “as soon as possible.“
Besides enforcing security, other points include offering humanitarian aid to victims of violence, rebuilding the damaged infrastructure, launching development projects and creating job opportunities in collaboration with the private sector, providing health, social, and education services, and backing efforts to reconcile conflicting parties.

A senior United Nations official has criticized a recent strike in Gaza, saying it could harm chances of Palestinian reunification.
The UN’s Mideast envoy has slammed the Abbas-led Palestinian Fatah group for staging strikes in Gaza.
Robert Serry also said such moves may deepen the rift between Palestinian factions.
“The situation created by the strikes only further entrenches the division between Gaza and the West Bank and prejudices the prospects for Palestinian reunification,“ Serry noted on Tuesday, according to Presstv.
Serry made the remarks as pro-Fatah unions announced plans to extend public strikes in the Gaza Strip for another week.
“These strikes threaten the provision of vital services to the people of Gaza who already face considerable hardship,“ Serry said, referring to Israeli blockades that bar the delivery of supplies to the Gazans.
Fatah staged the strikes throughout the coastal strip to protest at what it calls Hamas’ attempt to remove its supporters from their posts. However, Hamas rejects accusations, saying any job transfers have been done for “technical and administrative“ reasons.
Relations between Hamas and Fatah soured following a series of bomb attacks in the Gaza Strip that killed five Hamas members. Hamas blamed Fatah gunmen for the killings.
Tensions between the two groups date back to 2006 parliamentary elections that led to Hamas’ overwhelming victory.
In clashes between Hamas and Fatah supporters in June 2007 the Palestinian Authority chief, Mahmoud Abbas, dissolved the Hamas-led government and appointed Salaam Fayad as prime minister.

Rising Death Toll
Meanwhile, the death toll of Palestinian patients is rising due to the continued Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The toll has reached 245 as a 77 year-old patient, Hussain Abu Jazzar died on Tuesday after having been unable to get treatment for his failed kidney. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the closure of Gaza’s crossings including the Rafah crossing terminal by Israel since June 2007 has doubled the suffering of hundreds of patients awaiting a glimpse of hope for treatment abroad.
The Ministry called on all free minds and souls around the world to intervene immediately to relieve the suffering of such patients, by pressuring the Israeli occupation to reopen the crossings.

Mashaal Move Denied
In other news, Hamas denied reports on Tuesday that the exiled head of its political bureau, Khalid Mashaal, has moved his office from Damascus to Sudan, asserting that relations between the Islamic movement and Syria are still strong, Maan News agency reported.
“Our relation with Syria is strategic and deep,“ said senior Hamas leader Esmaeil Radwan.
Radwan was addressing a report published in a Kuwaiti newspaper that Mashaal had moved his operation to Sudan at Syria’s request.
Radwan also denied that his movement received an official invitation from Egypt to Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo.
All Hamas learned, he said, was that Egypt will host a Hamas delegation during the last ten days of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan for bilateral talks with the Egyptians who will by then have completed talks with a Fatah delegation.
The Reconciliation dialogue in Cairo ended its first week as the Egyptians held bilateral talks with the Islamic Jihad delegation, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who rejected a proposal to deploy troops from Arab states in the Gaza Strip.
Radwan said that that proposal was meant to “blow up the dialogue and end it before it starts.“
The idea of sending some form of international forces to Gaza had been floated as an interim step towards unifying administrative control between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Unlawful Killing
In another development, an Israeli court convicted two border guards over the unlawful killing of a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil in 2002.
According to BBC, Imran Abu Hamdieh died after the two men, Shahar Botbeka and Denis Alhazov, pushed him from the back of a military vehicle traveling at 80 km/h.
Earlier this year, another member of their unit was jailed for six and a half years, but he fled the country.
A fourth officer was jailed for four and a half years in a plea bargain.
Hamdieh was seized from outside his home in Hebron on 30 December 2002.
He suffered serious head injuries when members of the border police unit - celebrating the end of their posting in Hebron-made him jump from their jeep as it sped through the streets.
Botbek and Alhazov are due to be sentenced in December.
Court documents described their actions as a rampage of cruel abuse.
They grabbed several Palestinians off the street and drove them to remote locations to beat them.
Hamdieh was picked up late in the evening. The border policemen beat him inside the vehicle and then opened the back door and ordered him to jump out, but he refused.