BEIRUT - Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah presented "proof" on Monday evening that Israel assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The Hezbollah chief showed various video clips - one of Israeli drones flying over Lebanon the day before and the day Hariri was killed - and another of a spy saying he had informed the prime minister of the plan.

"Since 1993, Israel has been trying, using its agents, to convince al-Hariri that Hezbollah was attempting to assassinate him," Walla news agency quote Nasrallah as saying.

"This is the reason they killed Hariri. Israel wanted to get Syria out of Lebanon," he said.

"Israel had the motive and the interest. It is hostile to the entire resistance movement, especially Hezbollah, as well as Syria," he said.

Nasrallah made his accusations weeks before the United Nations international tribunal is expected to name senior Hezbollah operatives as complicit in Rafik's assassination in 2005.

Israel's Foreign Ministry brushed off the sheikh's speech as "ridiculous lies," while one senior Israeli official called his information "laughable."

"The international community, the Arab world and most importantly the people of Lebanon all know that these accusations against Israel are simply ridiculous and stem from Nasrallah's own fears that the investigation will point to his organization," he said.