TEL AVIV Ñ The Iranian-backed Hizbullah has prevented the United Nations from ensuring calm along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Israeli officials and Western diplomats said Hizbullah has blocked UN peacekeepers from entering many areas along the Lebanese border with Israel.

They said Hizbullah has established roadblocks to prevent UN patrols from monitoring the border.

The UN has not challenged Hizbullah, the officials said. "UN commanders have acknowledged that they can't do their job," an Israeli military commander said. "The issue has been raised quietly, but the Hizbullah won't budge."

A Western diplomatic source involved in the effort confirmed that Hizbullah has foiled UN peacekeeping efforts. The UN has refused to raise the issue publicly.

Hizbullah has established at least 20 posts along the Lebanese border with Israel. The movement has also deployed a range of rockets in southern Lebanon.

Israeli officials said the UN has also refused to divulge information meant to help locate three soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah in October. The officials said that for months UN officials denied possession of a video taken by an Indian peacekeeper hours after the Israeli soldiers were abducted in a UN vehicle on Oct. 7. The officials said the kidnappers were also dressed in UN uniforms.

"We obtained information that there was a video recording by a UN representative," Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said on Thursday. "One of the representatives, amid an apology, said the video is in the possession of the UN."

Israel has appealed to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to transfer the video to Israel. The video was said to have been recorded 18 hours after the kidnapping and shows the two vehicles used in the abduction.

"For the past several months, the defense establishment has been receiving reports that a videotape filmed the day after the kidnapping is in the hands of the United Nations," a Defense Ministry statement said. "This tape documents such things as the vehicles used by the terrorists and may shed light on the circumstances surrounding the event."

The spokesman of UN troops in Lebanon, Timor Goksel, said commanders did not assess that the video was important. "The information in the video cassette ... I'm sure it was conveyed in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], not in the video form," Goksel said. "But I don't think it was considered as providing any significant information. Since then, I am not personally aware of anybody asking for the videotape."

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