Hezbollah attacks Israeli troops on Lebanon border

BEIRUT (AP) - The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah attacked an Israeli armored vehicle with a roadside bomb along the border Monday and Israel responded with artillery fire.

Hezbollah said it set off a large explosive device as an armored patrol passed in the disputed Shebaa Farms area, destroying a Humvee and causing casualties among the soldiers inside.

The Israeli army said vehicles in the area were hit with an improvised explosive device and that it responded with targeted artillery fire. It did not say whether there were any casualties.

Lebanese residents along the border said shelling from Israeli tanks and artillery landed in agricultural areas inside Lebanon, with some 40 shells hitting areas around the disputed Ghajar village. They did not report casualties. The residents requested anonymity, saying they feared for their safety.

Hezbollah said the unit that carried out the bombing was named after Samir Kuntar, a high-profile figure in the group who was killed last month in Syria in an attack the militant group blamed on Israel.

Hezbollah has vowed to avenge the killing of Kuntar, who was the longest serving Lebanese prisoner in Israel before he was released in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in a cross-border raid two years earlier.