If confirmed, it would mark a violation of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire and indicate a failure by international peacekeepers to prevent new attacks on Israel.

The army said it detonated all of the explosives, which were hidden in containers that looked like boulders. The army said the explosives were designed to target Israeli military patrols on the border.

The army said the bombs had been planted as recently as Sunday night, but gave no evidence to back the allegation.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody 34-day war last summer, with Israeli border towns pummeled with hundred of rockets. The border area has largely remained quiet since.

Under the cease-fire, thousands of international peacekeepers, along with Lebanese government troops, police the border to ensure quiet. Hezbollah guerrillas are banned from carrying arms in the border area under the truce.

Israel and Hezbollah battled a bloody 34-day war last summer, with Israeli border towns pummeled with thousands of rockets.

Hezbollah says that bombs were placed prior to July war ( Update Feb 6, 2007 at 8: 20 PM)

Hezbollah has confirmed today that the bombs that were were uncovered by Israel , on the Israeli side of the borders with Lebanon, were placed there prior to the July war.

Hezbollah guerrillas have returned to Lebanon's border with Israel

Six months after the end of the war with Israel, Hezbollah guerrillas have defiantly returned to Lebanon's border with the Jewish state, riding around on motorbikes waving the Shiite Muslim party's flag and pictures of their leader Hassan Nasrallah.

"During the war, enemy chiefs said they would not allow Hezbollah to raise its banners along the border," Hezbollah spokesman Haidar Daqmaq said Tuesday.

"We have returned to put up our banners and even bigger posters of martyrs.
We have added the martyrs who fell in the July-August war," he said.

A beefed-up UN peacekeeping force is patrolling the volatile border area along with Lebanese soldiers under the terms of a UN-brokerd ceasefire that ended the 34-day war and was meant to keep Hezbollah away from the frontier.

But in the last few days, apparently unarmed black-clad and bearded guerrillas have been riding motorbikes along the border area that had been under Hezbollah control for years.

Hezbollah continues to have a strong presence in the area, but no arms or military equipment are visible.

French General Alain Pellegrini, who headed the UN force until last Friday, said peacekeepers had no evidence that Hezbollah still had an armed presence in the area but said security remained "fragile."

Hezbollah claims it achieved a "divine victory", but the war left more than 1,200 dead in Lebanon, and 157 Israelis. The war also resulted in the complete devastation of Lebanon's infrastructure and the destruction of over 120,000 homes .

Picture: Poster of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Several posters were recently erected by Hezbollah on the borders with Israel .

Sources: AP, Ya Libnan