Israeli troops have opened fire in southern Lebanon, killing two people and wounding two, according to the Lebanese state news agency, following two days of relative calm in the country amid a fragile truce.Two men were killed when Israeli soldiers “opened fire with their machine-guns in their direction while they were standing near an excavator that was unblocking a road” in a town near the city of Nabatieh, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Tuesday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThey are the first reported deaths from Israeli fire in Lebanon in three days, threatening a United States-brokered “ceasefire” that has largely held since Sunday.The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah denounced the “treacherous attack”, saying it was a “blatant” violation of the truce. It did not say whether it would respond.The Israeli military said it “struck armed terrorists who posed an immediate threat” to soldiers in the Ali al-Taher ridge area of the south, within an area of south Lebanon where Israeli forces have declared a “security zone”.Earlier, Mahmoud Qamati, deputy head of Hezbollah’s political council, warned that the Lebanese group will respond to any violation of the ceasefire by Israel, according to Iran’s Press TV.Qamati said Hezbollah’s retaliation will come “in kind”, adding that there will not be a “return to the pre-war situation” when Israeli forces launched near-daily attacks on Lebanon even as the group’s fighters held their fire.“Hezbollah remains fully alert with its finger …
