LIVE BLOG: Three dead, seven injured in Israel-Hezbollah clashes
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A UN peacekeeper from Spain was killed Wednesday in southern Lebanon, a source at the Spanish embassy said, as the Israeli military shelled border areas after a Hezbollah attack.
"I can confirm that a Spanish soldier was killed in southern Lebanon," the source told AFP.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressed on Twitter his "great sadness at the death of a Spanish soldier in Lebanon."
A variety sources have reported the deaths of Israeli soldiers, though this remains unconfirmed. The Lebanese Daily Star has reported 4 Israeli deaths, though this has also not been confirmed by Israel. However, Israeli sources have confirmed casualities, including 3 injured.
Earlier, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon spokesman Andrea Tenenti said the peacekeepers' commander, Major General Luciano Portolano, was "in close contact with all the parties, urging maximum restraint to prevent an escalation."
Its ranks were reinforced after the 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah that killed 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The 10,000-strong peacekeeping force, including nearly 600 Spanish soldiers, is composed of troops from 36 countries.
Daniel Nisman, a geopolitical analyst specializing in Eastern Mediterranean affairs, has this take on the motives behind the fighting:
Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid:
Lebanon’s Daily Star reporting four Israel soldiers killed in attack, 1 UN peacekeeper in later border fighting:
Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack against a military convoy in Israeli-occupied Shebaa farms.
"At 11:25 (0925 GMT) this morning, the Quneitra martyrs of the Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) targeted an Israeli military convoy in the Shebaa Farms composed of several vehicles which was transporting several Zionist soldiers and officers," Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast on the group's Al-Manar television channel.
"There were several casualties in the enemy's ranks," it said.
Al-Manar said Hezbollah targeted nine Israeli military vehicles, and that it had killed "a large number" of troops.
On January 18, six Hezbollah fighters and a member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Syrian-held Golan Heights.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is set to give his first speech since that attack on Friday.
(AFP)