Israel Kills Two in Lebanon Amid Fragile Ceasefire

Lebanon reported that Israeli military fire killed two people, the first fatalities in several days under a fragile ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah. The deaths came as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun rejected Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and foreign interference in his country’s affairs — a veiled reference to Iran — during the fifth round of Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington.

On Monday, Pakistani and Qatari mediators said Tehran and Washington had agreed to establish a ‘de-confliction cell’ to limit escalation in Lebanon, following talks in Switzerland about ending the wider Middle East war, which Tehran linked to halting the parallel conflict in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said the two men were killed when Israeli troops ‘opened fire with machine guns towards them as they stood near an excavator that was clearing a roadblock’ in Nabatieh al-Fawqa. The health ministry later confirmed the death toll. Hezbollah condemned the incident as a ‘blatant’ Israeli violation of the ceasefire and a ‘treacherous attack’.

The Israeli military said its forces fired warning shots at four suspected Hezbollah militants on a bulldozer and motorcycle, before ‘additional fire was conducted to remove the threat’. In a separate statement, it said it had ‘identified an armed cell operating’ near troops in the declared Israeli security zone, which extends roughly 10 kilometres (six miles) into Lebanon, and ‘struck… to remove the threat’. Separately, the NNA reported that ‘an enemy drone targeted a parked car’ on the outskirts of Baraasheet, without immediately reporting casualties.