BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader has praised an Arab decision to halt peace talks with Israel, saying the only option remaining is armed resistance against the Jewish state.

Hassan Nasrallah spoke to tens of thousands gathered in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold.

Nasrallah’s remarks came a day after Arab foreign ministers rejected any Israel-Palestinian peace talks before the US takes a firm stance on the future borders of a Palestinian state.

Nasrallah says Arab leaders finally realized that talks with Israel are “dead.” Nasrallah, who lives in hiding, spoke through a video link.

“Come to the path of resistance and the choice of resistance,” he said.

“Be honest with your people and confess to them the truth — the possibility of a settlement is over,” said Nasrallah, whose movement fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel.

“We have no choice to restore our land and dignity ... but through resistance,” he added, drawing chants of “death to Israel” from the tens of thousands of faithful who had gathered in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the capital Beirut.

Nasrallah’s speech came a day after Arab foreign ministers ruled out a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks without a “serious offer” which would ensure their success.

Nasrallah said the Arab League was “late in discovering what they announced yesterday” but nonetheless called on governments to “return to the path of honor, dignity, pride and the refusal of humiliation.”

“If our government, Arab and Islamic governments ... announced the end of negotiations and listened to the choice of the people, you would find the world was bowing before you and asking you for a chance to find a solution,” Nasrallah said.

Arab ministers said late on Wednesday night that they intend to seek a UN Security Council resolution against further Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank even though it is likely to face a veto from Washington. The peace process was thrown into disarray last week after Washington acknowledged that it had failed in its high-profile efforts to persuade Israel to renew restrictions on settlement construction — the Palestinians’ condition for continuing to negotiate.

Meanwhile Nasrallah predicted a UN court on the murder of Rafik Hariri would “disappear with the wind.”

“This new conspiracy against the resistance and Lebanon, dubbed the international tribunal, will disappear with the wind,” Nasrallah said in his latest attack on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Hariri.

“We will defend the resistance, our dignity, our country against unrest and against aggressors and conspirators no matter what their guise,” he said.

In a speech marked by a more pacific tone than that adopted in recent months, Nasrallah on Thursday emphasized that his Iranian-backed militant group was keen to preserve peace among Lebanon's feuding communities.

“We announce our commitment to Lebanon, to unity within our country, and to peaceful relations among the many confessions and communities of our country,” he said.