Israel has defied a growing international call, led by the European Union on Monday, as it carried out deliberate attacks on the U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Monday denounced as "completely unacceptable" a series of Israeli attacks that have injured U.N. troops.

"The 27 (EU) members agreed on asking (the) Israelis to stop attacking UNIFIL," Borrell told reporters ahead of a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Luxembourg. "It's completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops," he said.

At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel carries out attacks on southern Lebanon and the Hezbollah group based there.

UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities created following Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon, has accused the Israeli military of "deliberately" firing on its positions.

"Many European members are participating in this mission," Borrell noted. "Their work is very important."

The condemnation comes after the U.N. said Sunday that Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of Israeli violations.

The UNIFIL peacekeeping force said two Israeli Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of a base and forcibly entered before dawn on Sunday morning.

After the tanks left, shells exploded 100 meters (yards) away, releasing smoke that blew across the base and sickened U.N. personnel, it said in a statement.

In its version of events, the Israeli military said members of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah group had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them.

The attack was very close to a UNIFIL post and a tank helping evacuate the casualties under fire then backed into the UNIFIL post, it claimed.

"It is not storming a base. It is not trying to enter a base. It was a tank under heavy fire, mass casualty event, backing up to get out of harm's way," the military's international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters.

In a statement, the military said it used a smoke screen to provide cover for the evacuation of the wounded soldiers but its actions posed no danger to the U.N. peacekeeping force.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an earlier statement addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: "The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones."

"The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah ... with human shields."

International warnings

Guterres paid tribute to UNIFIL's peacekeepers, who "remain in all positions," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement issued later on Sunday, adding that "the U.N. flag continues to fly."

The Secretary-General reiterated a warning that peacekeepers must not be targeted, he said.

"Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime," Dujarric said.

UNIFIL has said previous Israeli attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited its monitoring abilities. U.N. sources say they fear any violations of international law in the conflict will be impossible to monitor.

On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said there would be "no withdrawal" of the U.N. peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon after Israeli attacks and calls to leave.

Spain condemned Netanyahu's call for the force to pull back and "there will be no withdrawal of UNIFIL," Sanchez told a forum in Barcelona.

Sanchez affirmed his commitment to a U.N. Security Council resolution that bolstered the force's role in 2006 following the last major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.

That commitment "makes more sense today than ever after seeing what is happening on the ground," Sanchez said.

France also joined Spain to reject demands made by Israel for a pullback of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

"The protection of peacekeepers is an obligation incumbent on all parties," the Foreign Ministry in Paris said.

Earlier Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a call with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, "reinforced the importance of Israel taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and Lebanese Armed Forces," according to a readout of the call.

Austin also pressed Gallant on the need for Israel "to pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway to provide security for civilians on both sides of the border as soon as feasible," it said.

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, typically one of Israel's most vocal supporters among Western European leaders, spoke to Netanyahu by phone Sunday and denounced the "unacceptable" Israeli attacks, her government said.

Italy has more than a thousand troops in the 10,000-strong UNIFIL force, making it one of the biggest contributors of personnel. France and Spain, which each have nearly 700 soldiers in the force, have also condemned the Israeli attacks.

The presence of UNIFIL puts peacekeepers from 50 separate countries in harm's way, in a force initially set up in southern Lebanon in 1978.

The area has seen decades of conflict, with Israel invading in 1982, occupying southern Lebanon until 2000 and again fighting a major five-week war against Hezbollah in 2006, which ended with a ceasefire monitored by UNIFIL.

Israel's assault against Hezbollah over the past three weeks has uprooted 1.2 million Lebanese and inflicted an unprecedented blow on the group by killing most of its senior leadership.

Lebanon's government says more than 2,100 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded in over a year of fighting, mainly over the past few weeks.