Netanyahu asks UN chief to withdraw UN troops from Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially asked the U.N. Secretary-General on the 13th local time to withdraw U.N. peacekeepers from Lebanon from combat zones.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said Israeli forces had repeatedly called on U.N. peacekeepers to evacuate troops and that soldiers stationed in Lebanon's fighting areas had become hostages to Hezbollah.

Andrea Tennenti, a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission, told AFP a day earlier that Israel had been asking to "withdraw from a location up to 5 kilometers from the blue line" but had refused to do so.

The Blue Line is the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon established by the United Nations after the 33-day war between Israel and pro-Iranian militant Hezbollah in 2006.

Nearly 10,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops are stationed here, serving as a buffer, and five members have been injured so far in the recent ground war between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.