Israel Strikes South Lebanon After Two Reservists Killed

Two Israeli reservists were killed on Wednesday when an improvised explosive device detonated inside a house in the village of Majdal Zoun, and the Israeli military launched a fresh wave of strikes on south Lebanon a few hours later, the same part of the country where a Serbian Armed Forces contingent carries out peacekeeping duty.

Serbian troops serve in that area under the United Nations flag, as part of the UNIFIL mission. The contingent rotated out at the end of July, at an airport in Nis, with a moment of silence held for non-commissioned officer Milovan Jovanovic, who was killed in early June in an attack on the mission’s headquarters. The Ministry of Defense said at the time that this was one of the most dangerous peacekeeping operations in the UN system. Every new round of strikes in the south is, for that reason, more than a distant headline.

What Happened in Majdal Zoun

According to the Israeli military’s initial findings, soldiers from a reserve brigade entered a building in the village of Majdal Zoun around midday while demolishing Hezbollah infrastructure. An improvised explosive device went off inside the structure.

Two reservists were killed and four were severely wounded. The Israeli military released their names on Thursday morning:

• Major Harel Birenstok, 34, a company commander from Nokdim
• Staff Sergeant Major Tamir Vaknin, 33, from Eilat

Both served in the 2855th Battalion of the 55th Paratroopers Brigade. Israeli losses have been rare at this stage of the operation, since activity in the south has mostly consisted of airstrikes and building demolitions, which is why the response came quickly.

Strikes Across the South, and an Evacuation Order

The Israeli military said it was carrying out precision strikes across south Lebanon in response to what it called a grave ceasefire violation by Hezbollah. It also issued an evacuation order for residents of Al Mansouri, a coastal village in the south, close to where the device had exploded.

A strike on a prayer room near a cemetery in Tibnin killed one person and wounded 12, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said. The same ministry says 4,333 people have been killed in the country since March 2, and 12,250 wounded.

That figure is context that is easy to lose in day to day reporting. The ceasefire in south Lebanon is technically in force, and the death toll is still four digits long.

What Is Being Negotiated in Rome?

Israeli and Lebanese delegations met in Rome, with American mediation. The second day of talks wrapped up on Wednesday, the same day the reservists were killed, and negotiations resumed on Thursday. We have written before about a similar overlap, when Israel struck south Lebanon while the delegations were already at the table in the Italian capital.

The talks concern implementation of the June 26 ceasefire agreement, which calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament and the deployment of the Lebanese army in pilot zones across the south. Beirut, in turn, is seeking a phased Israeli withdrawal from the south and an end to the strikes.

The State Department said the two sides are significantly closer to an agreement on expanding the pilot zone process. That is the only concrete step named publicly so far, and it concerns the mechanism, not a timeline.

Why Hezbollah Is Refusing the Table

Hezbollah refuses direct talks with Israel and refuses to hand over its weapons, so negotiations run through intermediaries and center on zones rather than disarmament itself. The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, said in a speech that the talks bring Lebanon nothing else:

nothing but shame and humiliation

That relationship is also the practical problem at the heart of the agreement. The government in Beirut has signed on to an obligation it cannot carry out alone, since disarmament requires the consent of an organization that has no seat at the negotiations, while the Lebanese army is supposed to move into territory Hezbollah still controls. Until that circle is closed, any incident on the ground, like the one in Majdal Zoun, resets things to the starting point.

For Serbia, that means its peacekeepers’ rotation continues inside a mission whose mandate depends on an agreement that has yet to be carried out. The third day of talks in Rome opened on Thursday, not quite six weeks after the agreement was signed, the same morning the Israeli military released the names of the fallen reservists.