Lahoud said Israel's decision to "continue the escalation threatens the stability of the Middle East and allows tension to grow," during a meeting here with US ambassador Vincent Battle.

"The latest Israeli attacks against Lebanon and Syria are more proof that Israel is not working for peace.

"On the contrary, with its aggressive tactics it is torpedoing any initiatives aimed at reinforcing calm and stability in the region," Lahoud said, according to a statement released by his office.

"The United States must play an effective role in relaunching the peace process and support the UN so it can apply the resolutions aimed at installing a just, universal and permanent peace in the region," he said.

Battle would only say in terse diplomatic language the meeting allowed for "an exchange of points of view on the recent local, regional and international developments," according to the statement.

The Lebanese-Israeli border has been tense since a deadly cross-border shooting which claimed the life of an Israeli soldier on Monday and the death later that night of a Lebanese boy in the border region following Israeli shelling.

The chief of UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon said a Katyusha rocket -- a trademark weapon of Lebanon's Shiite militia Hezbollah -- appeared to be to blame for the boy's death.

The killings followed a weekend Israeli airstrike on an alleged Palestinian militant training camp in Syria -- the main power-broker in Lebanon -- which in turn followed a Palestinian suicide bombing in northern Israel.

WAR.WIRE