BEIRUT, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese Army said on Friday that it had not received orders from Prime Minister Fouad Seniora to confiscate arms of Hezbollah as the group's chief charged in a speech Thursday.

    "The army stood firmly on side of the Lebanese resistance (Hezbollah's militias) in face of the Israeli aggression in July, in line with government policies and out of the faith in the resistance sacrifices," the army said in a statement.

    The army's comments came a day after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah charged Thursday that Seniora had ordered army's confiscation of weapons transported to the resistance in southern Lebanon.

    The command indicated that the army had taken precautions to bar transportation of arms across the borders into the country and these measures exempted the arms in the possession of the resistance.

    Hezbollah, a Shiite armed group, has so far rejected calls from the UN Security Council for the militia to disarm or merge with the army, as proposed by members of the Lebanese government.

    It vows to hold its weaponry to liberate Shebaa Farms, a disputed Israeli-occupied border area.

    Lebanese sectarian tension in the cabinet began to escalate last month when six pro-Syria ministers resigned after Seniora and the anti-Syrian majority in the parliament rejected the opposition's demand for a new national unity government.

    The opposition has been staging an open-ended sit-in for eight days in Beirut in a bid to topple Seniora's government and form a national unity cabinet.