Three people, including a French UN peacekeeper, were killed in a flare-up of violence between Israeli troops and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in the volatile border area between the two countries. The peacekeeper's patrol was hit by shrapnel from an Israeli round near the disputed Shebaa Farms area, Lebanese police said, amid a series of retaliatory air raids triggered by a Hezbollah bomb attack that killed an Israeli soldier. Sporadic but often deadly violence has continued across the border between the two countries, which remain technically at a state of war, despite Israel's pullout from south Lebanon almost five years ago. Shimon Peres, who is due to become the Israeli cabinet's number two this week, issued a warning to Syria over the attack by Damascus-backed Hezbollah. "Responsibility for this attack lies with Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria," he said. A spokesman for the UN force in Lebanon said the French officer with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) had been killed while a Swedish observer and their Lebanese driver were wounded. The UN spokesman, Milos Srwjer, said the observers had come under fire from the Israeli side of the Blue Line that the United Nations drew up to serve as the border between Lebanon and Israel after the Jewish state ended its 22-year occupation in 2000. In Paris, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie "paid homage to the memory of Major Jean-Louis Valet, a French officer who died while serving to protect the peace in Lebanon, and sent her deep condolences to his family and friends," her office said. The Israeli army confirmed that one of its troops had been killed in a Hezbollah bomb attack on the border with Lebanon. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A UN officer scans the disputed Shebaa farms area with his binoculars in the southern Lebanese village of Kfarchouba following an Israeli raid. (AFP)