In southern Lebanon on December 15, Hezbollah, or villagers acting under its direction, fired at UNIFIL peacekeeping forces, killing one Irish soldier and wounding several others. So far, the UN has not dared to denounce Hezbollah. More on the story can be found here: “Those responsible for Irish soldier’s death ‘will be punished’ – Lebanon PM,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, December 15, 2022:
United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) appeared to effectively turn a blind eye on Thursday [Dec. 15] to any real consequences for an incident in which some of its troops were killed and injured in Lebanon, though it expressed disdain [sic] and sorrow.
A senior Hezbollah official on Thursday said an “unintentional incident” had led to the death of an Irish soldier on a UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon the previous evening, saying the armed group was not involved.
Wafiq Safa told Reuters his party offered its condolences “after the unintentional incident that took place between the residents of al-Aqbieh and individuals from the Irish unit,” and urged the party not to be “inserted” into the incident.
Despite the Hezbollah official’s pleas to keep the group out of the incident, the group has an iron grip on the use of force in large swaths of Lebanon, including the southern border with Israel where the incident occurred, and is recognized as by far the strongest fighting force.
Hezbollah has, as the story says, an “iron grip on the use of force” in this area of southern Lebanon. If it was not Hezbollah fighters themselves who fired on the UNIFIL troops, it was local Shi’a Lebanese, following standing orders from the terror group to prevent UNIFIL from doing its job – that is, to find and seize any weapons Hezbollah might have hidden in and around civilian houses. It is inconceivable that any locals would have fired on UNIFIL without the express approval of Hezbollah.
Further, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Kohavi echoed past top IDF officials on Wednesday noting that Hezbollah and Hamas have systematically concealed their rockets and weapons among the civilian population.
There have been many past incidents, though not recently, where Hezbollah fired on UNIFIL troops who tried to remove their hidden weapons or even accidentally came near a concealed Hezbollah weapons position.
Hezbollah has a long history of firing on UNIFIL to keep it from doing its job of removing weapons concealed in civilian areas by the terror group. But recently UNIFIL has been much more cautious, and less aggressive, in conducting its searches for hidden Hezbollah weapons; consequently there’s been less need for Hezbollah to warn away UNIFIL troops with live fire. But this past August, UNIFIL was given greater powers by the UN to patrol independently, not checking with Hezbollah first, nor needing to be accompanied by Lebanese army soldiers. The UNIFIL soldiers decided to vary their route, and take a path they had not taken before. This alarmed Shi’a villagers who obeying standing orders from Hezbollah, fired on the UNIFIL troops as a way to head them off from taking the new route, which might have led to the discovery of hidden weapons.
Also, Hezbollah has a history of trying to cover up unpopular military actions or mistakes that its forces take, including an August 2020 explosion in Beirut that killed over 200 people and left around 300,000 homeless. Strong evidence suggested the explosion was caused by the accidental setting off of some of its concealed explosives in a civilian area, but Hezbollah managed to ward off an investigation into the incident from having any direct consequences for its personnel.
The August 4, 2020 blast in Beirut caused 218 dead, 7,000 wounded, 300,000 homeless, and $15 billion in damages. It was the result of negligently stored ammonium nitrates in Hangar #12 at the Port of Beirut – that Hanger was under the exclusive control of Hezbollah. Nonetheless, despite a lengthy investigation that led to the arrest of at least 25 people, the terror group has not itself been charged with responsibility for the blast, and since the summer of 2022 the investigation has stalled. Hezbollah has effectively scared the government into silence. The “Beirut blast” incident shows how Hezbollah operates, brazenly lying, and covering its tracks when it has been responsible for great loss of life and tremendous property damage, just as it is now doing by denying any link to the killing and wounding of Irish soldiers belonging to UNIFIL.
Another member of UNIFIL is in serious condition having undergone surgery following the incident, an Irish defense forces statement said. Two other soldiers are being treated for minor injuries.
It is with deep regret that Óglaigh na hÉireann (the Irish defense forces) can confirm the death of one of our peacekeepers in a serious incident in Lebanon last night,” the defense forces said.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon also said on Thursday that it was coordinating with the Lebanese armed forces and have launched an investigation into the killing….
There is no chance that this investigation will conclude that Hezbollah was responsible, directly or through its proxies, the Shia villagers in southern Lebanon, for the attack on the UNIFIL forces. Instead, the conclusion will be something like this: “local villagers, acting on their own, decided to attack troops whom they mistook for the armed marauders who had lately been plaguing their villages with thefts of livestock. Only afterwards did they realize that those they had fired on were UNIFIL troops, and for this mistake they are deeply sorry.” That just might be plausible enough to be accepted by both the Lebanese government and the UN, neither of which has any desire to put the blame on Hezbollah, which both are powerless to punish.
The villagers became immediately alarmed when the UNIFIL forces took a road that they normally did not use, presumably a road that might lead them to discover arms caches — rockets, missiles — hidden by Hezbollah. So they at once blocked one of the UNIFIL vehicles, surrounding it and firing at those inside, which is when the Irish soldier was killed.
AP reported that in January, unknown perpetrators attacked Irish peacekeepers in the southern town of Bint Jbeil, vandalizing their vehicles and stealing items. The residents accused them of taking photographs of residential homes, though the UN mission denied this.
The “unknown perpetrators” of previous attacks on the Irish peacekeepers may indeed have been local villagers, who were under orders from Hezbollah to make life difficult for the UNIFIL troops, or they may have been Hezbollah fighters, determined to keep the peacekeepers from conducting their searches for hidden weapons. The accusation about the peacekeepers taking photographs of residential homes may well be true, despite the UNIFIL denial: they may have been photographing homes that looked inexplicably uninhabited, making them likely hideouts for rockets and missiles. It is part of UNIFIL’s job to send back to headquarters evidence, like photographs, of all such suspicious dwellings. The villagers were right to be alarmed.
There has been no announcement of the perpetrators being prosecuted in this or in other parallel earlier incidents.
It is impossible for the weak Lebanese state to prosecute Hezbollah, which boasts a military force several times larger, and vastly better armed, than the Lebanese Army, and has made clear it will not allow the Lebanese to arrest, much less put on trial, its fighters.
When UNIFIL tried to prevent Hezbollah from expanding its weaponry and power base in 2006, to fulfill its UN mandate, there were a number of skirmishes until the peacekeeping force backed down.
In August, UNIFIL was again given some additional authorities to patrol independently, which Hezbollah opposed and condemned.
The UNIFIL forces are well-known in Lebanon and it is questionable whether a random group of armed people with no connection to a larger group would fire on them without direct or indirect authorization.
Since August UNIFIL has had more authority to conduct its searches, including the freedom to patrol independently without being accompanied by Lebanese army troops. Hezbollah, of course, was opposed; it wants every move by UNIFIL to be known. UNIFIL troops were only exercising that new freedom when, in mid-December, they took a new route along the coast. Lebanese villagers, no doubt acting under standing orders from Hezbollah, tried to stop them by surrounding their vehicles and even shooting at the troops inside, which is when the Irish soldier was killed.
There will be a pro forma investigation. Hezbollah will not be accused. The murderers will go scot-free. And that will be the end of this, as of so many similar, episodes.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
UNIFIL is still in Lebanon? I thought that they were gone after the Beirut bombings in 1982, or at least after Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon
Alkflaeda says
I guess that, according to their convoluted logic, the August 2020 incident was really the fault of unbelievers for not taking the initiative in making submission to Islam, thus necessitating caches of weapons….