Italy's defence minister on Thursday slammed the "shooting" at the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon as "intolerable", after the force said it had been hit by Israeli tank fire.

"The shooting at the UNIFIL headquarters" and other incidents involving "small arms fire" are "intolerable, they must be carefully and decisively avoided. For these reasons, I protested to my Israeli counterpart and the Israeli ambassador to Italy," Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement.