TEL AVIV, September 16. /TASS/. A fundamental change in the security situation on the border with Lebanon is needed to ensure the return of local residents who were evacuated from the area amid continuing shelling attacks by Hezbollah units, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"The Prime Minister made it very clear that it will not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north," the Israeli prime minister’s office quoted him as saying at a meeting with visiting US Presidential Special Envoy Amos Hochstein.

Netanyahu thanked Hochstein for the United States’ support but noted that Israel is ready to settle security issues on the border Lebanon by itself.