BEIRUT, October 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States was to set to boycott Wednesday, October 16, Lebanon’s inauguration of a water project strongly opposed by Israel, even though the ceremony was to be attended by European Union and Russian representatives.

“We chose not to send a representative in keeping with our position that unilateral action by either party undermines efforts to reach an understanding,” a U.S. diplomat told Agence France-Presse (AFP), requesting anonymity.

“We very much want the dispute to be solved peacefully and fairly,” the diplomat said, referring to Israel’s opposition to the pipeline project which has diverted some of the Wazzani River’s waters to 20 southern villages.

“To that end we continue to work closely with the governments of Lebanon and Israel in conjunction with the U.N., the E.U. and others,” the diplomat added.

The ceremony was to be opened by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, and attended by a European Commission delegation as well as representatives from the European Union and Russia.

A spokesman for the British embassy said the “E.U. supports the economic development of the south,” which was occupied by Israel for 22 years until a troop pullout in May 2000.

The European Union on Monday offered a comprehensive development plan for southern Lebanon to help ease the crisis with Israel, a plan Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri said could spread over 10 years.

Last week Lebanon delivered a report to the U.N. Security Council saying the total amount of water diverted would amount to 10 million cubic meters a year, much less than the 35 million cubic meters granted to Lebanon under an unratified 1955 agreement.

Since Israel’s hard-line prime minister, Ariel Sharon, threatened war over the issue last month, U.S. State Department hydraulics expert Charles Lawson has been meeting with officials on both sides in an effort to prevent an escalation.

The Wazzani is a tributary of the Hasbani which flows into the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main fresh water source.

On Tuesday, October 15, the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah warned that its forces would retaliate “within minutes” if Israel targeted the Wazzani water project in south Lebanon.

“The Hezbollah leadership has informed the headquarters of the Islamic Resistance of its decision that any attack on the installations on the Wazzani River should be met with a categoric, firm and decisive response,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as saying.

“The riposte will be extremely fast, and I am not exaggerating if I say within minutes - we won’t wait hours or days,” Nasrallah told a student gathering In Beirut.

“The targets for retaliation have been defined precisely - our brothers know what to do and will need only a two-second phone call,” he stressed.

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that he regarded Lebanon's project to take water from the Wazzani river to supply some 40 border villages as grounds for war.

The war of words between the Lebanese and Israeli governments has toned down in recent days with mediation missions to the region by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

Lebanon successfully completed Wednesday October 9, a trial to pump water from Wazzani spring despite Israeli warnings.

“We have completed a successful trial operation on the pumps, and we are working for the October 16 official inauguration ceremony,” Qabalan Qabalan, director of the state Council of the South, told AFP.

“We do not care about the Israeli threats. We want to obtain our rights from our own waters,” he said after the 45-minute trial to test water pumping from the Wazzani source to a main tank about 1.5 kilometers away.

A few hundred meters away, Israeli soldiers watched the operation closely through binoculars.

Sharon has threatened war over Lebanon’s plan to tap the Wazzani, which indirectly feeds the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main fresh water source.

But officials from Sharon’s office made no immediate comment on the water pumping trial.

Lebanon also announced Wednesday, that it had completed a 100-page report to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to defend its right to Wazzani River.

The file was drafted by a committee formed by the Lebanese government on September 19 and made up of technical experts, senior civil servants and chaired by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.