deaths from Israeli fire<\/a> in Lebanon in three days, threatening a United States-brokered \u201cceasefire\u201d that has largely held since Sunday.<\/p>\nThe Lebanese armed group Hezbollah denounced the \u201ctreacherous attack\u201d, saying it was a \u201cblatant\u201d violation of the truce. It did not say whether it would respond.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said it \u201cstruck armed terrorists who posed an immediate threat\u201d to soldiers in the Ali al-Taher ridge area of the south, within an area of south Lebanon where Israeli forces have declared a \u201csecurity zone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Mahmoud Qamati, deputy head of Hezbollah\u2019s political council, warned that the Lebanese group will respond to any violation of the ceasefire by Israel, according to Iran\u2019s Press TV.<\/p>\n
Qamati said Hezbollah\u2019s retaliation will come \u201cin kind\u201d, adding that there will not be a \u201creturn to the pre-war situation\u201d when Israeli forces launched near-daily attacks on Lebanon even as the group\u2019s fighters held their fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cHezbollah remains fully alert with its finger on the trigger, ready to confront any violation by the Israeli regime,\u201d he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 4,106 people since March 2. At least 1.2 million people have also been forced from their homes.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s death toll from its latest conflict with Hezbollah includes at least 32 soldiers and four Israeli civilians.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir issued a joint statement saying the Israeli military will continue to \u201cact with determination in order to neutralize threats against our soldiers and our citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n
The military would continue to demolish infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, and would also continue to \u201cmaintain the security zone in southern Lebanon\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n
The statement came after Netanyahu issued a video statement insisting that the Israeli military will \u201chave full freedom of action\u201d in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy stance is firm on our remaining in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as is required,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesman has said the US is obligated to force Israel to halt its attacks on southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all witnessed the continued attacks by the Zionist entity on Lebanon,\u201d Esmaeil Baghaei said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe obligation to put an end to the war in Lebanon is part and parcel of the previous and current arrangements. The US commitment is clear and there is no justification whatsoever for the Zionist entity to continue to assault Lebanon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Baghaei said the Israel-Hezbollah war is a \u201cvery complicated issue\u201d, but added \u201cfinal arrangements\u201d will be reached \u201cover the coming days\u201d.<\/p>\n
A new round of US-mediated negotiations between Israel and Lebanon is to begin today in Washington, with talks expected to last until Thursday.<\/p>\n
Lebanon is represented by Ambassador Nada Moawad, while the Israeli delegation is headed by Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. US officials are also participating in the talks.<\/p>\n
Lebanon is seeking Israel\u2019s withdrawal from the south of the country, where the Israeli military has established a so-called \u201cbuffer zone\u201d that encompasses about 6 percent of Lebanese territory.<\/p>\n
Israel says it is seeking the \u201cdisarmament\u201d of Hezbollah. Hezbollah says the talks should be limited to \u201cmutual security\u201d and that its weapons must be kept off the table.<\/p>\n
But many residents in Lebanon remain sceptical of the ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n
Mohammed Yassin, 60, told the Reuters news agency that he would return to his home in the town of Hula in southern Lebanon \u201cthe moment they say the [way] is open and things are OK\u201d. He added: \u201cWe don\u2019t trust the ceasefire, because Israel is deceitful. It\u2019s not like [they are] people who commit to what they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suzanne, also 60 years old, said she and her family were made homeless after Israeli attacks on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were renting in the Dahiyeh and the homes are gone. They hit [bombed] them \u2013 there are no homes [left]. Where are we supposed to go? We don\u2019t know where we\u2019re supposed to go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have trust, because several times they\u2019ve said there was a ceasefire, and then they go back to attacking again. I mean, they are people who can\u2019t be trusted,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli troops have opened fire in southern Lebanon, killing two people and wounding two, according to the Lebanese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,48084,88,47,43],"class_list":["post-507312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-attacks-lebanon","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}