US President Joe Biden has said he is "absolutely, positively" urging Israel to stop firing at UN peacekeepers during its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, following two incidents in 48 hours.
On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were responsible for the incident, in which two Sri Lankan soldiers for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) were injured.
IDF soldiers operating around the Unifil base in Naqoura identified a threat and opened fire, the Israeli army said, adding the incident would be investigated "at the highest levels".
On Thursday, Unfil's two Indonesian soldiers were injured falling from an observation tower after an Israeli tank fired towards it.
The leaders of France, Italy and Spain issued a joint statement condemning Israel's actions, saying they were unjustifiable and should immediately come to an end.
Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said it "strongly condemns" the IDF attack which injured two of its soldiers.
The head of UN peacekeeping said there was reason to believe some firing on UN positions in southern Lebanon had been direct, though he did not ascribe responsibility for the incidents.
"For example we have a case where a tower was hit by a fire and also damages to cameras at one of the positions - which obviously to us very much looked like direct fire," Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the BBC's Newshour programme, reports BBC.
As Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon continues, the IDF and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah continued to fire missiles and rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border.
The IDF said it had detected about 100 rockets crossing into northern Israel from Lebanon within the space of half an hour on Friday. Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were detected crossing from Lebanon, one of which was intercepted, the IDF said.
The Lebanese ministry of health said three people, including a two-year-old girl, were killed in an Israeli raid on the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon. Two Lebanese soldiers were killed after Israeli forces targeted an army post in the town of Kafra in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said.
In the capital, Beirut, emergency workers continued to comb through the wreckage of buildings hit by two Israeli air strikes on Thursday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attacks came with no warning and killed 22 people, all civilians, and injured another 117. Israel has not commented.
Israeli forces launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon last month as they escalated their response to rocket fire from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near-daily cross-border fire since last October, when the Palestinian armed group Hamas in the Gaza Strip carried out a deadly attack in southern Israel.
The IDF has said the UN post struck in Naqoura on Friday was about 164ft (50m) away from the source of the threat identified by soldiers. It said it had told peacekeeping troops to stay in protected spaces at the time.
Unifil said Israeli military vehicles had knocked over barriers at another UN site in Labbouneh, closer to the border with Israel.
The incidents represented a "serious development", it said.
Mikati said Friday’s attack was "a crime which is directed at the international community".
Bd pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
