Israel's own Arrow missiles will also be deployed around Tel Aviv's coastal conurbation to bring down any rockets fired from south Lebanon by the Shite militant group, army radio said, without saying when the deployment would happen.

Hezbollah has so far only hit the north of Israel with the hundreds of rockets it has fired since July 12 in response to the Israeli offensive.

Patriot missiles are already deployed in the north but they are ineffective against the small rockets which Hezbollah has used so far.

Military analysts believe that Hezbollah has larger and longer-range rockets that could strike as far south as Tel Aviv.

A missile shield, combining the US-made Patriot batteries with Arrow missiles, was last set up in Tel Aviv in the weeks leading up the US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003. But it was not used as Saddam Hussein's forces did not fire any rockets at Israel during that conflict.

Saddam did however attack Israel with Scud missiles in the 1991 Gulf War. The Patriot missiles deployed at the time failed to intercept most of them. The Patriot has since then been improved.

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