A terrorist opened fire Tuesday afternoon at an IDF force near Margaliot in the Galilee Panhandle and was killed in an exchange of fire with soldiers from the 769th Brigade stationed at a nearby outpost. No Israeli troops were wounded.The incident was considered highly unusual because the area is supposed to have been fully cleared. The IDF is investigating how an armed terrorist, apparently carrying a handgun, reached the area and managed to fire at troops nearby. The military is also checking whether there was another terrorist or an accomplice assisting the gunman who was killed.IDF strikes in Lebanon (Video: Nativ Ohana)Following the unusual incident, the Upper Galilee security department instructed residents of Misgav Am, Margaliot and Manara to remain inside their homes until further notice. Road 866 was also closed to traffic between Yiftah and Manara, as well as between the Tel Hai Junction and the ascent to the Ramim Ridge.Senior members of Israel’s Security Cabinet said Tuesday morning, a day after another ceasefire with Iran, that any Hezbollah fire meant to cross the border into Israel would lead to an IDF strike in Beirut’s Dahieh district, despite Tehran’s threats to respond each time Israel acts there. A senior Cabinet official said Israel had instructed the military to preserve the equation it set for Hezbollah.“We ordered the army to maintain the equation we established vis-à-vis Hezbollah, and that will be the test,” the official said. “Whenever there is fire meant to cross the fence, toward our communities, we will fire at Dahieh, and then we will see what happens in Iran.”“The IDF is deepening the maneuver,” they said. “We are operating there with force and the Iranians are doing nothing. We are destroying the strategic infrastructure Hezbollah built in the Beaufort area. This is an event that will allow residents of the north to live in a corrected reality for the next 20 to 30 years.”Ministers said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday that Israel had to respond to Iranian fire, and that it did so. The next day, despite what was described as a tense first conversation between the two, they held another call in a friendlier atmosphere, during which Trump told Netanyahu that Israel had acted against his view, but now had to stop and return to negotiations.“If you don’t respond, you turn Israel into a U.S. protectorate, and if you do respond, you ruin relations with it,” a senior government official said in response to criticism. “There is very delicate strategic navigation here.”2 View gallery IDF strikes in Tyer, Lebanon (Photo: Kawnat HAJU / AFP)A senior Cabinet official outlined what Israel sees as the necessary achievement in Lebanon.“If the war ends with Hezbollah pushed beyond the Litani and we have destroyed all the infrastructure close to the border for nine or 10 kilometers, that is an insane achievement,” the official said. “It means there is no infiltration threat, no anti-tank missile threat, and hundreds of thousands of Shiites have nowhere to return to. This is not the security zone of the 1980s and 1990s. This is a sterile area with no one in it. It is a different security reality.”2 View gallery Naim Qassem, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: IDF, REUTERS/Amir Cohen, REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak)The official also claimed Israel would know how to handle Hezbollah’s remaining surface-to-surface missiles, which he said amounted to about 30% of the arsenal the group previously held.“The only reason Iran joined is that Hezbollah was in insane distress, but we are continuing to operate in Lebanon as if Iran does not exist,” he said. “If there is a limitation on our ground activity in Lebanon, then the Iranians have succeeded. But overall, the Americans are with us here and are allowing us to work.”Israel believes an agreement will eventually be reached with the Lebanese government.“Hezbollah thought Iran would save it, and now understands that it will not, because the IDF continues to operate, blow up and thwart,” the senior Cabinet official said. “What does it have left? It will try to go to the same agreement that, from its perspective, is a surrender agreement. In such a situation, the IDF remains in the entire area and continues to clear terrorist infrastructure and destroy it, while Hezbollah does not fire. That is a one-sided ceasefire.”