November 29, 2002 8:30 PM By Mariam Karouny

NABATIYEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hizbollah leader has urged Palestinians to ignore international criticism of suicide attacks and keep up armed struggle against Israel as the best way to liberate their land.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah also told the Jerusalem Day rally, which coincides with the anniversary of a 1947 United Nations resolution partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews, should learn from Lebanon's experience that no political solution would end Israeli occupation.

"What will protect Jerusalem, its holy places, and get it and Palestine back is the path of the Palestinian people, through martyrdom seekers who astonish the world, each day and night...and rattle the Zionist entity and the security of its settlers," he said on Friday.

The Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbollah was the driving force behind ending Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000. Its guerrillas have since clashed with Israeli troops in a disputed border area.

Scores of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian suicide attacks since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in 2000.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Nabatiyeh, a stronghold of the Shi'ite Muslim group, to watch a Hizbollah military exhibition and a parade of armed units named after Lebanese and Palestinians killed in conflict with Israel.

Hundreds joined similar rallies near Palestinian refugee camps throughout Lebanon, while in Damascus over a 1,000 people marched carrying Palestinian, Hizbollah and Syrian flags.

REISTANCE IS A "CASE OF SELF-DEFENCE"

Nasrallah compared the Palestinian uprising to his group's struggle to end Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

"Today the resistance in Palestine is also a case of self-defence. The Palestinians do not attack others. They did not go to Russia to kill Russian Jews, Ukraine to kill the Ukrainian ones, Poland to kill Polish Jews, or to Ethiopia to kill the Falasha..." Nasrallah said.

"The Zionists are the ones who came from all over the world to usurp the land, holy places, cities and villages of others," he told crowds gathered despite icy rain. "What the Palestinians are doing with the martyrdom operations is legitimate, legal, Islamic and moral because they seek to end injustice."

Nasrallah warned Israel against harming Muslim holy places like Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest shrines.

"The Zionists and those behind them must understand that if they touch the al-Aqsa mosque the entire region will explode," Nasrallah said. "If they want to destroy the mosque, then its nation (Muslims) will destroy this oppressive entity (Israel) through the blood of its martyrdom attackers," he added.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2002