JERUSALEM — Despite a surge of bitter anger among Israelis over the loss of nine soldiers in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin held fast Friday to an agreement reached with Syria and did not send forces to flush Iranian-backed guerrillas from Lebanese villages.

Rabin also reaffirmed Israel's commitment to peace negotiations with Syria in the face of demands by the right-wing opposition that it break off the talks following the deadliest attack on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon since 1985. Israel views Syria as the paramount power in Lebanon.

"The way to avert such tragedies in the future is a peace agreement," a senior Rabin adviser said. "That is a strategic decision we made, and we will not be forced out of it by terrorist attacks in southern Lebanon or political posturing at home."

The popular response would have been a massive Israeli counterattack in Lebanon on Friday as the soldiers were buried amid national mourning. Political sentiment was for an ultimatum to Syria to disarm Hezbollah, the fundamentalist, pro-Iranian Party of God, which had ambushed the soldiers in Israel's self-declared "security zone" in southern Lebanon.

"The government must come to the conclusion that there is no value to the agreements reached (on Lebanon) with Syria," said Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the opposition Likud Party. "We must clearly demand that Syria stop the Hezbollah terror. It must be made clear to them that the blood of our soldiers is not for the taking."

As they buried their dead from the two ambushes, both within a mile of the country's northern border, many Israelis expressed a sense of betrayal. Most had thought that the agreement reached with Syria last month ending Israel's weeklong air, artillery and naval bombardment of Lebanon was intended to curtail, if not halt entirely, the Hezbollah attacks.

"What was the point?" demanded Haim Ben-Zvi, a Jerusalem shopkeeper. "Why did we try to bomb half of Lebanon to smithereens, why did we drive half a million people from their homes, why did we go through all that if not to achieve quiet in southern Lebanon?"

The answer, Rabin told the nation in a radio interview, was that "Operation Accountability," as it was dubbed, was aimed at securing peace for Israel's northern communities, which Hezbollah had been attacking with short-range Katyusha rockets.