BINT JBEIL, Lebanon (AFP) - Qatar's emir on Saturday made a high-profile visit to south Lebanon, a Hizbollah stronghold destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate is helping finance.

"Lebanon is still facing many challenges, primarily the choice of its citizens to maintain the nationalism and Arabism of Lebanon," said the emir, Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani.

Lebanon is "a nation that is home to people of all confessions, both Muslim and Christian", the emir noted at the town of Bint Jbeil, which witnessed some of the fiercest fighting in the deadly war between Israel and Hizbollah.

Accompanied by President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the emir was greeted by Hizbollah officials in southern Lebanon, a stronghold of the Shiite party.

Sheikh Hamad arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit on Friday, the same day that Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Assad made an unprecedented joint visit aimed at defusing political tensions.

Fears of renewed conflict in Lebanon rose in July after Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah revealed he knew the UN tribunal probing ex-premier Rafiq Hariri's murder was poised to indict members of his party, which is backed by Syria and Iran.

In May 2008, a government bid to curb Hizbollah's power brought Lebanon close to a new civil war when a week of sectarian clashes killed more than 100 people as opposition fighters led by Hizbollah seized large swathes of Sunni areas in Beirut.

Qatar, which had pledged massive aid to help rebuild the south after Israel's devastating war with Hizbollah, also played a key role in ending the 2008 crisis, brokering a deal for the formation of a national unity government.