MAJIDIYA, Lebanon: Two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UN peacekeeper were killed on Wednesday as Lebanon’s Hizbullah and Israel exchanged fire in their most serious clashes in years. The violence raised fears of another full-blown conflict erupting between the bitter enemies, who fought a month-long war in 2006. The two soldiers were killed when Hizbullah fired an anti-tank missile at a military convoy in an Israel-occupied border area, the army said. Seven other soldiers were wounded but local media said none had suffered life-threatening injuries. Israel responded with “combined aerial and ground strikes” on southern Lebanon after the attack — an apparent retaliation for a recent Israeli strike on the Golan Heights that killed senior Hizbullah members. Lebanese security sources told AFP that Israeli forces had hit several villages along the border. Clouds of smoke could be seen rising from Majidiya village, one of the hardest hit. There was no immediate information on casualties. A 36-year-old Spanish corporal from the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon was killed in the exchange of fire, officials said. The 10,000-strong UNIFIL mission said it had observed six rockets fired towards Israel from southern Lebanon and that Israeli forces “returned artillery fire in the same general area”. It said the precise cause of the peacekeeper’s death was “as yet undetermined” and urged all sides to show “maximum restraint to prevent an escalation”. Hizbullah said it had targeted an Israeli military convoy “transporting several Zionist soldiers and officers.” “There were several casualties in the enemy’s ranks,” Hizbullah said in a statement broadcast on the group’s Al-Manar television channel. Israel said that mortar fire was also aimed across the border at several military facilities but that no one was hurt. Israeli military leaders convened to discuss their response as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the army was “ready to act with force on any front”. On a visit to China, hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Twitter that Israel should respond to the attack “in a very harsh and disproportionate manner, as China or the US would respond to similar incidents.” Army spokesman Brigadier General Moti Almoz warned that Israel was considering further action. “This is not necessarily the last response,” he wrote on Twitter. Hizbullah’s attack was hailed by the Palestinian Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. “We affirm Hizbullah’s right to respond to the Israeli occupation,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said, while Jihad’s Quds Brigade praised the attack as “heroic”. Israeli security sources said at least one house in the divided village of Ghajar — which lies partly in Israel and partly in Lebanon — had been hit.
