Two Reservists Are Killed by a Device Left Inside a Building in Majdal Zoun

Maj. (res.) Harel Birenstock, 34, from Nokdim, and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tamir Vaknin, 33, from Eilat, were killed around noon on Wednesday at Majdal Zoun in southern Lebanon. Both served in the 2855th Battalion of the 55th Paratroopers Brigade. Four more reservists from the unit were seriously wounded. The men had entered a building as part of an operation to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure, and an explosive device detonated inside it. How the charge was placed and what set it off are not yet established.

The military called the device a blatant violation of the ceasefire and struck southern Lebanon in response, its first strikes since 1 August. It told residents of Mansouri to move a kilometre north before the aircraft came. The Lebanese health ministry reported one person killed and 12 wounded, in a strike on a prayer room in the cemetery at Tebnine, a town some 25 kilometres from the place the warning named. Separately an interceptor was fired inside southern Lebanon, causing no injuries, and that is under investigation.

The timing matters more than usual. Ceasefire talks in Rome broke up early on Wednesday, with Israel's ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, accusing the Lebanese delegation of leaking false information and the US State Department pointing to events on the ground. The two sides were due back at the table on Thursday.

The arrangement they are arguing over dates from 26 June, and its most visible effect has been the return of more than 800,000 displaced Lebanese to the south. A ceasefire that permits demolition operations inside villages is a ceasefire in which both sides can point at the other and be describing something real. That is the condition the talks are trying to convert into something more durable, and each incident of this kind narrows the room they have.