Israel wants Lebanon to reassert its sovereignty in the south

Israel and Hezbollah both claimed victory as a UN-brokered truce to end the month-old fighting took effect.

Israel said on Monday that it had won a diplomatic victory over Hezbollah because the UN resolution would put the group under international scrutiny.

"We have the diplomatic advantage as Hezbollah is now under the microscope of the international community," Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Hezbollah and its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, "will have to respect resolution 1701", he said, which calls for an embargo on arms and training to fighters in Lebanon.

"This means that there will no longer be a state within a state along our northern border to keep provoking us," he said.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said that it had scored a "divine victory" in the conflict.

This sentiment was echoed in Beirut where Hassan Fadallah, one of Lebanon's two Hezbollah MPs, championed his movement's success as refugees started to return home.

Surrounded by supporters and standing in front of the rubble of flattened buildings, Fadallah said: "They will return home, their heads held high, in dignity, after resistance acheived a great victory for them."

Posters of Nasrallah were distributed in Beirut's Shia stronghold southern suburbs with the caption: "The divine victory."

But Palmor said: "Politically and militarily, Hezbollah can no longer do what it likes in Lebanon."

Shimon Peres, the deputy prime minister of Israel, said: "Hezbollah will not finish a huge hero, but with its tail between its legs."

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