BEIRUT: Ninety Irish peacekeepers arrived in Beirut Monday, in preparation for Ireland’s first full-scale UNIFIL battalion deployment to serve in Lebanon in a decade.
The 90 peacekeepers, made up of security and logistics personnel, have arrived to prepare the battalion’s headquarters in Tibnin in time for a further 350 to arrive between June 23 and 27.
Irish troops previously served in Lebanon close to 25 years until their withdrawal in 2001. In October 2006, 150 Irish soldiers served in Lebanon as peacekeepers following a month-long war between Israel and Lebanon in July of that year.
The arrival of the Irish troops, which was first announced in December last year, comes less than a week after six Italian peacekeepers were also wounded by a roadside bomb on the same stretch of highway.
According to a report in an Irish newspaper Tuesday, the troops’ duties in Lebanon will include patrolling the blue line, with a focus on mobile patrolling, alongside the Lebanese Army.
The battalion will be the best-equipped to be sent overseas, the newspaper said, due to regional volatility, although the current risk assessment for Lebanon is low.
The UNIFIL was set up in 1978 to monitor the border between Israel and southern Lebanon and was given a wider role after the 2006 war Israel waged against Lebanon.