Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon this week sends a message to Washington that Tehran is a key player in the region and cannot be isolated, Lebanese newspapers said on Friday.

"The Americans are being told: 'If you isolate Iran, Iran will corner you in Lebanon and elsewhere'," said an editorial in the independent Arabic-language daily Al-Anwar.

Israeli warplanes on Friday carried out intensive, mock air raids over south Lebanon.

The state-run National News Agency said Israeli jets staged mock air raids at medium attitude over Nabatiyeh, Iqlim al-Tuffah, Marjayoun, Khiam and Arqoub.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stressed during a meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on the need for "speedy and direct dialogue between the Lebanese to avoid the effects of the indictment and the International Tribunal, which could be politicized," As-Safir newspaper said Friday.

It said Hariri replied, stressing that he supports dialogue "because it is the only way to address the problems."

Druze leader Walid Jumblat said Lebanon cannot afford losing Prime Minister Saad Hariri and announced that he will rename him in the event he resigned.

Hariri should stay "in order to save this country," Jumblat told BBC radio.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ended a two-day visit to Lebanon by meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The overnight meeting took place at the Iranian embassy in Beirut's Bir Hasan neighborhood.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived to a hero's welcome in southern Lebanon on Thursday as he attended a mass rally in Bint Jbeil, a Hizbullah border stronghold flattened in the 2006 war with Israel.

A frenzied crowd of thousands of men, women and children crammed into an outdoor stadium and on rooftops waving Iranian, Lebanese and Hizbullah flags and cheering the hardline president on stage as he again predicted the demise of the Jewish state.

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi on Thursday stressed that his country was "exerting utmost efforts in order to preserve the unity of the Lebanese," adding that "the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is a Lebanese affair."

"Iran discusses with the Lebanese the key regional and global issues. As to the domestic issues and topics, we have already stated our position in that regard," added Roknabadi.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel noted Thursday that the "Lebanese system is at risk and we should resist all that may destabilize it."

"We should confront the plan to topple the system and components of the state with legitimacy through parliament and Cabinet," he said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes the closest he has ever been to his arch-foe Israel on Thursday when he tours Lebanon's southern border region on the second day of a high-profile visit.

The hardline leader, who has questioned the Holocaust and described Israel as a "tumor," will stand some four kilometers (about two miles) from the Jewish state on the final leg of a controversial two-day visit to Lebanon that Washington has described as "provocative".

Israelis were on Thursday warily watching their northern border for a rare opportunity to see up-close the arch-enemy of the Jewish state, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian president, who is on a two-day trip to Lebanon, was expected to conduct a controversial tour of the southern border region during the afternoon for a visit which has been slammed by the United States and Israel as "provocative."