"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 Agence France-Presse (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 (one mile) away.

"The quantity of waters that we will be pumping is less than what is our right," he added.

The test was carried out by technicians in the presence of Qabalan, project contractor Sharif Wehbe and Hussein al-Abdallah, the top official of the Lebanese Islamic resistance movement, Hezbollah, in the region.

"Our rights in the Wazzani waters are clear and we will not give up this right whatever the pressures or threats," Abdallah told reporters.

The move came after the return to Lebanon late Tuesday, October 8, of U.S. State Department water expert Charles Lawson to continue seeking a compromise in Lebanon's water dispute with Israel, AFP reported.

Lawson, who first visited Lebanon and Israel last month, was expected to hold talks later Wednesday with Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, officials in Wazzani told AFP.

Far-right Israeli Prime Minister Ariel 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.

Lebanon plans to provide drinking water to an initial 20 villages in the border area, which was under Israeli occupation for 22 years until the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal.

Beirut says it will be drawing no more than 10 million cubic meters (325 million cubic feet) per year, way below the 35 million (1.235 billion) granted to it under an unratified 1955 agreement.

The formal opening, to be held October 16, will be attended by government ministers, MPs and tens of thousands of residents, Lebanon's chief administrator for the border district, Qabalan Qabalan, said.

The ceremony at this pumping station, little more than a kilometer (barely a mile) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, will coincide with a meeting in Beirut of foreign ministers from the 51-member organization of French-speaking nations.

Qabalan insisted that a string of foreign experts who have hurried to inspect the project since Sharon's threat of war last month had all told the government privately that Lebanon was within its rights.

"The foreign experts, including those from the United States, have told us that our rights in the Wazzani waters are clear, but they have told us not to say so in the media," the official said.

Israeli jets have earlier overflew the Wazzani area and other regions of the country, including Beirut, Wednesday, breaking the sound barrier in the largest such show of force for several months.

Meanwhile, Lebanon completed Wednesday a report due to be sent "in the coming hours" to U.N. chief Kofi Annan to defend its right to exploit water from the Wazzani river, officials said.

"The Lebanese foreign ministry will file the report in English and Arabic in the next hours to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan," a government official said.

He added Lebanon does not accept any mediation over the issue, even as Washington looks to resolve the crisis, AFP said.

In case there was a need to arbitrate the dispute, Beirut would only resort to the United Nations, the official said.