Two Israeli Soldiers and Spanish Peacekeeper Killed as Israel and Hezbollah Trade Fire

Two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UN peacekeeper were killed Wednesday when Hezbollah and Israel fired at each other along the border with Lebanon.

The two soldiers were killed when a missile struck their military convoy in a disputed area along the border. Seven others were injured in the attack.

Israel responded with both air and ground strikes on Hezbollah targets, Israeli officials said. Both sides reportedly continued to trade rockets and artillery into the afternoon.

The Spanish UN peacekeeper, army chief Francisco Javier Soria Toledo, was killed on the Lebanese side of the border when Israeli shells hit Abbassieh, a village near the border.

The exchange came after an Israeli airstrike in Syria on January 18 killed five Lebanese militants and a high-ranking Iranian general. Today's Hezbollah attack was the most deadly on Israel since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

Rockets from Syria hit Golan Heights as Israel's 'quiet border' grows restless. Read more here.

The casualties in the January 18 attack included Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of former Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car bombing in Damascus in 2008.

Israel had anticipated retaliation following the airstrike, and boosted security along its northern border with Lebanon and in the Golan Heights, the occupied territory that separates the country from Syria.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack and said in a statement that it destroyed a number of Israeli vehicles and caused casualties among "enemy ranks," the Associated Press reported. The group said the attacks were carried out by a faction called the "heroic martyrs of Quneitra" in retaliation for the airstrike in Syria.

Iranian general killed in Israeli airstrike inside Syria. Read more here.

"At these moments, the IDF is responding to events in the north," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Twitter, referring to the Israeli military. "We will not allow terror elements to disrupt the lives of our citizens and threaten their security. We will know how to respond with force to whoever challenges us."

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, said from China that Israel should respond to the attack "in a very harsh and disproportionate manner."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey took to Twitter to express his condolences to the slain peacekeeper's family. The Spanish mission to the UN said in a statement that Toledo "was killed this morning during the incidents between Hezbollah and the Isareli Army, in an area under the responsibility of the Spanish contingent."

"One peacekeeper was killed. We are looking into the circumstances of this tragic incident," said Andrea Tenenti, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Tenenti called on all parties to exercise "maximum restraint" as fears spread of further escalation.

"The tension in the north, it's a very tricky and I would say flammable situation," Israel Ziv, a reserve major general in the Israeli army told reporters. "It's very clear that, very easily from events and retaliation, we will find ourselves in a war that does not belong to Israel."

On Tuesday, two rockets fired from Syria landed in the Golan Heights — causing no injuries. Mortar shells were also fired into the area Wednesday following the strike on the Lebanese border.

Errant shells from the conflict raging in neighboring Syria had hit Israeli-controlled territory before, but military officials said the Israeli targets were attacked deliberately and tensions had escalated in recent weeks. Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Syrian government forces in Syria. While Israel has officially remained neutral on the conflict next door, it has carried out a number of strikes on regime and Hezbollah targets there.

Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, reportedly said the airstrike that killed the group's fighters in Syria earlier this month was proof Israel is not neutral.

Lebanon has not fully recovered from the latest war with Israel — which killed more than 1,100 people — and is already fighting incursions of Islamist militants on its northern border with Syria and sheltering more than 1 million Syrian refugees.

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi