AITA SHAAB, Lebanon, July 20 (AFP) - A Hezbollah fighter was killed Tuesday in an Israeli air strike on Lebanon as cross-border violence flared the day after a military commander of a radical Shiite group was blown up in an attack blamed on Israel.
An Israeli combat helicopter fired at least one rocket on a Lebanese border village as Israeli troops and Hezbollah militiamen were locked in fighting across the volatile frontier.
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to "cut the hand" of Israel on Monday after blaming it for a Beirut car bomb attack which killed Ghaleb Awwali, a member of the movement's military wing the Islamic Resistance.
Cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have continued even since Israel's May 2000 troop pullout from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
In Monday's violence, the Hezbollah fighter was killed when Israel fired a rocket on the Lebanese village of Aita Shaab about 500 metres (yards) from the border, Lebanese and Hezbollah sources said.
In Jerusalem, Israeli military sources said Hezbollah snipers fired at soldiers manning a post in northern Israel, prompting the Israelis to fire tank shells across the border into southern Lebanon.
The troops then destroyed a Hezbollah position in Lebanese territory, they said.
The violence erupted barely 24 hours after the killing of Awwali, an attack which Hezbollah blamed on the Jewish state despite an alleged claim of responsibility by an underground Lebanese Sunni Muslim group.
The attack was carried out "either by Israeli hands that infiltrated into Lebanon with European, American or other foreign passports, or at the hands of local Lebanese agents," Nasrallah said on Monday.
A statement by a shadowy Sunni Muslim group called Jund Ash Sham (Soldiers of Damascus) said the bombing was part of a plan to eradicate Shiite "heresy," but a man claiming to be the group's leader later denied any involvement and blamed Israel's Mossad spy agency.
Israeli officials refused to make any comment but one senior source said that Israel "did not have that kind of reach or potency."
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri condemned the attack and said he was confident that the criminals would be arrested and given a "punishment they deserve.
The Islamic Resistance is the military arm of Hezbollah, which waged a guerrilla war that was instrumental in leading to the Jewish state's withdrawal from its northern neighbour more than four years ago.