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IRISH PEACEKEEPERS HAVE been assisting the Lebanese army and local humanitarian groups on missions as they recover the dead in the rubble of bombed out villages in South Lebanon.
A fragile truce that came into effect last November ended more than a year of conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
Thousands were killed in Southern Lebanon in the course of the conflict and there were mass displacements of people throughout the area and in the north of Israel.
The relatives of those killed in the fighting have been returning in recent months.
Lieutenant Colonel Shane Rockett, who leads Ireland’s 125th Infantry Battalion of 339 soldiers at Camp Shamrock, spoke to The Journal at the base yesterday.
Located near the town of At Tiri, it’s just eight kilometres from the line of demarcation dividing Lebanon and Israel.
The task of the soldiers is to monitor and report any breaches of UN resolution 1701, which is intended to stop the warring sides from engaging in conflict, to the United Nations.
In the autumn of last year that resolution was stamped on repeatedly as Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel and the Israeli Defence Forces launched a massive incursion and bombing campaign.
The fighting stretched north into Beirut and further to the Becca Valley close to Syria – but the greatest devastation was reserved for the diverse population of the hundreds of villages and towns that dot the hillsides in the south.
Rockett spoke about the work of his men and women and how their mission for the last five months has been fraught with danger and difficulty.
“Really what struck us on the first day when we came here was the total and utter devastation that was in south Lebanon,” he said.
As the fighting stopped the population who fled north began to return. Rockett said what they found were villages and towns razed from existence, the decomposing bodies of people still lying in crushed buildings.
From the helicopter pad in Camp Shamrock, or United Nations Post 2-45, the village of Yaroun can be seen a short distance away. The Irish troops told us that they estimate that 80% of the area has been destroyed.
Rockett said that some locations have suffered as much as 90% damage.
The Irish job has been to assist agencies like the Lebanese Red Cross and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) – and that their primary task has been to clear the rubble and the bombs and ordnance left behind.
“This mission has been different to other missions that have deployed to Lebanon,” he said.
Rockett uses the military phrase “kinetic activity” to describe the devastating trading of military blows.
“We’re finding, because of the kinetic activity and the war that was here really from the start of October (2023) right up to the beginning of November 2024, we are finding a lot of unexploded ordnance, we are finding a lot of IEDs, we’re finding a lot of military grade equipment that has been destroyed.
“We are also assisting the Lebanese Red Cross in their efforts to recover bodies from the local towns and villages.”
Irish troops don’t recover the bodies themselves, he said. “We provide the security … It’s the Lebanese Red Cross that does that.”
As the relatives of those killed return, some have turned on the United Nations – sources who spoke to us in the area this week said the Lebanese blame the UN for not stopping the fighting.
The issue is that the Irish troops and the rest of the 10,000 soldiers in the multi-national United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are bound by a stringent set of conditions in the original resolution from 1978.
“Absolutely, and again sometimes we as Irish people think that our flag protects us from everything, but the reality is that we are out here working for UNIFIL under the UN flag.
“When people were returning to their towns and villages, they were angry at UNIFIL, they were angry at the UN for not doing more than what could have been done.
“As a consequence, my soldiers would have experienced aggressive behaviour from the locals.”
Rockett explained that they have been deploying Irish Civil Military Cooperation (CIMIC) teams to rebuild those connections.
CIMIC teams assist the local populations in projects – the Irish have funded the construction of medical facilities, an orphanage in nearby Tibnine and also a number of drinking water facilities.
With the CIMIC teams and through his own engagement with local mayors, the UN troops are aiming to rebuild connections in the locality “in order to make sure that we are creating the conditions for a safe and secure environment for future patrols that go out after that,” Rockett added.
The Journal last spoke to Rockett and some of his team at their Mission Readiness Exercise in the Glen of Imaal in County Wicklow in October. The battalion arrived in Lebanon the following month.
We asked him yesterday if the mission has gone as he expected.
“We would have prepared our soldiers as best we could have for deployment here.
“You can do so much training but the reality is a different kettle of fish.
His team were shocked by the level of devastation when they arrived, he said.
“It was something that I certainly had not experienced before and I had been out here on a previous mission where we had seen kinetic activity, but this was on a scale ten times worse than that,” he added.
Rockett said that it has been hard to win the hearts and minds of people in Lebanon.
“If you can imagine if somebody came in and bombed your home town or village and there was a military force there, the first question you would ask is ‘what did you do to prevent that?’
“We have worked hard in the five months that we have been here to liaise with the local communities and tell them that, look, the Irish and UNIFIL did not leave. If we had left, the destruction would have been a lot worse and probably the casualties a lot worse.
“We tried to built up that, I suppose, positive relationship with the local communities as a result of our actions here.
“I know from my engagement with the local communities that they realise that and they know that had we pulled out, had we withdrawn from South Lebanon that it would have been a lot worse.”
The current atmosphere is extremely tense – the Irish soldiers are at Level Two in terms of security – meaning that firing near 2-45 could happen at any time.
“It is very unpredictable here at the moment,” he said.
Need more clarity and context on what is happening in the Middle East? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to finding good information online.
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