French PM reminds Netanyahu that Israel was created by UN decision

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not forget his country was created as a result of a resolution adopted by the United Nations, French President Emmanuel Macron told cabinet on Tuesday, urging Israel to abide by UN decisions.

Tensions have increased between Netanyahu and Macron, with the French leader last week insisting that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts.

France has also repeatedly denounced Israeli fire against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, who include a French contingent.

"Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN," Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting, referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

"Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN," he added, as Israel wages a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed.

His comments from the closed-door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named.

Netanyahu on Tuesday hit back at the comments, saying the country's founding was achieved by the Nakba in 1948, not a UN ruling.

"A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors - including from the Vichy regime in France," Netanyahu said to a statement.

Netanyahu also said he opposed agreeing to a "unilateral ceasefire" in Lebanon during a call with the French president, according to a statement released by his office.

"The prime minister said in the conversation that he is opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was," Netanyahu said, according to a statement.

Netanyahu and the Israeli military have repeatedly insisted that there must be a buffer zone along Israel's northern border with Lebanon where there is no presence of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified (to Macron) that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping," the statement from his office said.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL should be deployed in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN to move the 10,000-strong peacekeeping force, who include 700 French troops, deployed in south Lebanon out of "harm's way", saying Hezbollah was using them as "human shields".