A Hezbollah missile strike hit an Israeli military convoy yesterday in retaliation for air strikes in Syria that have killed its members battling Islamic State (Isis).

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said there were “casualties” as a result of the strike and the military later confirmed two soldiers were dead.

Hezbollah claimed it had “destroyed a number of Israeli vehicles carrying officers and soldiers.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a “forceful” response to the attack, which took place near the Shebaa Farms, land disputed between Syria and Lebanon but annexed illegally by Israel since 1981.

He issued a chilling reminder of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza last year, that left thousands of Palestinians dead.

“To anyone trying to challenge us I suggest looking at what happened in the Gaza Strip,” he bragged.

“Hamas was dealt its heaviest blow ever.”

But Israeli rights group B’Tselem condemned his comments — noting that the majority of Palestinians killed last summer were “women, minors or the elderly.”

Strikes on homes were “one of the appalling hallmarks” of the fighting and had been approved at the highest level, director Hagai El-Ad said.

“There is no question in our minds that this was not the outcome of a low-level decision but a matter of policy.”

The Israeli Defence Forces claimed that they had only targeted “legitimate military targets” and had made “extensive efforts to minimise harm to civilians,” although it has continued to refuse to divulge details of who or what was being targeted in individual strikes.

But its response to the Hezbollah missile strike appeared totally indiscriminate — with shelling hitting the Lebanese border villages of Majidiyeh, Abbasiyeh and Kfar Chouba.

A Spanish peacekeeping soldier, Corporal Francisco Javier Soria Toledo, was killed, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confirmed.

Reserve Israeli General Israel Ziv said the situation was “flammable” and Israel should look at containing it.

“We could find ourselves in a war that does not belong to Israel,” he warned, referring to the struggle between Syria’s Bashar al-Assad government and the Isis terror group.

“We should not take any steps that would pull us into the chaotic situation in Syria.”