"The purpose of this blockade at this point is beyond me," Elias Sfeir, owner of Tools and Building Materials, told AFP, reflecting a general sentiment among business leaders.

"Now we feel that more and more the Israeli attitude is aimed against all the Lebanese, it is no longer against Hezbollah as such."

Sfeir said 15 containers with goods worth half a million dollars for his company have been blocked in ports outside Lebanon since the blockade went into effect on July 13.

"If this goes on for another month, I'll have to shut down and tell all the staff -- 40 people -- to go home," he said.

Israel imposed the blockade a day after militants from the Shia Hezbollah group seized two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid that sparked a month-long conflict that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, overwhelmingly civilians, and at least 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israel has said that the blockade was to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and that it would be lifted once a UN brokered truce that went into effect on August 14 has been implemented fully.

But given that the ceasefire has held for three weeks and mounting calls by the international community, including the European Union and the United Nations, for the blockade to be lifted, there is general consensus in Lebanon that the measure is no longer justified.

The Lebanese government has said the country sustained some 3.6 billion dollars in material losses as a result of the war and billions more in economic losses. It has also warned of a recession and Lebanese MPs since Saturday have held a sit-in at parliament to protest the blockade.