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Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem and agencies
Israel and Lebanon have been embroiled in a cross-border skirmish after an Israeli soldier was shot dead, prompting retaliatory fire that hit two Lebanese soldiers.
Despite the potential for the incident to blow up into a serious clash, there was no further escalation in the hours following the cross-border fire. The Israeli-Lebanese border has been relatively quiet in recent years but there is a long history of fighting in the area.
The Israeli soldier was named as Staff Sergeant Shlomi Cohen, aged 31. According to army radio, he was alone in his vehicle close to the border on Sunday evening when several shots were fired, causing his vehicle to overturn. He died after being taken to a nearby hospital, and was due to be buried at the military cemetery in Haifa at 5pm on Monday.
IDF troops fired at suspects near the site of the incident in the early hours of Monday, after identifying "suspicious movement". Two members of Lebanon's armed forces were hit, said Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman Libby Weiss, but no information was given on their condition.
The Lebanese media reported that the soldier who killed the Israeli sergeant went missing for several hours before reporting back to his base on Monday morning.
Unifil, the UN peacekeeping force along the Israel-Lebanon border, said it had no information about a shooting on Monday.
Speaking on Sunday evening in response to the death of the Israeli soldier, IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said: "The IDF has protested this outrageous breach of Israel's sovereignty with Unifil and has heightened its state of preparedness along the border. We will not tolerate aggression against the state of Israel, and maintain the right to exercise self-defence against perpetrators of attacks against Israel and its civilians."
However, Daniel Nisman, a Tel Aviv-based security analyst, said both sides wanted to avoid escalation following the cross-border shooting. "Negotiations between Israel, the Lebanese army and Unifil indicate the there's no desire for this to blow up." he said.
However, he added that tension along the border was at its highest since 2006 because of the presence of "rogue elements" within the Lebanese army. "This incident shows just how fragile the quiet is."
In the past year, six Israeli soldiers have been injured in explosions along the Lebanese border although it was not clear whether the incidents were accidents.
In a separate incident, a Lebanese soldier was killed on Sunday when a bomb was thrown at his checkpoint outside the southern Lebanon city of Sidon.
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