2 dead in Israel-Lebanon border fight
Israeli soldier, U.N. peacekeeper killed
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An Israeli army officer and a United Nations peacekeeper were killed Sunday when a gunfight erupted between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah militants in the disputed Shebaa Farms region along the Israel-Lebanon border, Israel Defense Forces said.
A U.N. peacekeeper also was wounded in the fight, the IDF said.
Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon that seeks to establish a fundamentalist Muslim state, claimed responsibility for the attack. The gunfight began after an IDF jeep traveling in the Shebaa Farms area hit a roadside bomb, both the IDF and Hezbollah said.
Israeli aircraft joined the fight, attacking three militia posts in southern Lebanon, the IDF said. Army officials said the posts have been used in the past to launch attacks against Israeli sites in northern Israel.
The wounded peacekeeper was taken to a Lebanese town for treatment, the IDF said.
The Shebaa Farms is an area near the poorly defined borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria that Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War.
Syria says Shebaa is part of Lebanon. Lebanon agrees Shebaa is its territory, but Israel says Shebaa Farms is part of the Golan Heights.
Israeli diplomats say Shebaa Farms could not be part of Lebanon because a May 2000 U.N. report certified that Israel had withdrawn entirely from Lebanon (in compliance with U.N. Resolution 425). The U.N. position is that the area is part of Israeli-occupied Syria.
