UN peacekeeper killed, two wounded in shelling in Lebanon

June 4 (Reuters) - A Serbian ‌U.N. peacekeeper ​in ​Lebanon died on Thursday from wounds sustained when mortar shells hit his position near Marjayoun in southeastern Lebanon ‌late the previous night, the seventh peacekeeper killed in ⁠the country since March.

The U.N. said two other peacekeepers serving with the United ‌Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) ‌were wounded in the incident, one from El Salvador and the other from Spain.

Hostilities between the pro-Iran Hezbollah movement and ​Israel reignited in Lebanon on March 2.

The soldier killed was Sergeant Milovan Jovanovic of Serbia's 27th Mechanized Battalion, U.N. spokesperson ⁠Stephane Dujarric told a news briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York.

He said U.N. Secretary-General ​Antonio Guterres condemned the killing of Jovanovic, who would have turned 37 on Saturday. He was married, ​with a son and a daughter, ‌and was on his first peacekeeping deployment.

"We reiterate that attacks on peacekeepers must stop," Dujarric said. "They are ⁠grave violations of international humanitarian law and ... may amount to war crimes."

"Those responsible must be held to account," Dujarric said.

He said the incident ⁠was under investigation, but based on an initial assessment, the position was struck ​by indirect fire coming from north of the Litani River.

Hezbollah rejected a new ceasefire on Thursday and Israel said it would not withdraw troops from ‌the country, undermining U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to halt fighting there to forge peace with ‌Iran.

This week Guterres wrote to U.N. Security Council members stressing the ⁠need for a continued uniformed ‌U.N. presence in Lebanon ​after the mandate of UNIFIL expires at the year-end.

(Reporting by Jana Choukeir; Editing by Alex Richardson and ‌Andrew Cawthorne)

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