LAST UPDATE | 7 hrs ago

Niall O'Connor

THE MINISTER FOR DEFENCE has described her journey to the Irish camp in South Lebanon and said almost every village has been obliterated by Israel’s bombing campaign and said it was as if an earthquake struck.

Helen McEntee, who is also foreign minister spoke to The Journal from the Irish camp UNP 2-45 where she is presenting medals of service to the Irish solders based there. 

McEntee was accompanied by advisers and the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces Lieutenant General Rossa Mulcahy.

The minister met Defence Forces personnel in south Lebanon who are serving with the 128th Infantry Battalion. 

Such is the security situation in South Lebanon, which is occupied by Israeli forces, that Irish media were not permitted to travel to the Irish camp with the delegation. It has been reported that Israel has banned journalists from occupied South Lebanon.

She travelled from Beirut by road to Naqoura, the UNIFIL Headquarters on the coast, and then by road into areas such as Ain Ibil and Dibl towards At Tiri where the Irish are based.

“In particular, leaving Unifil HQ and travelling directly to Camp Shamrock. The only way I can describe it is that it looks as though everywhere has been hit by an earthquake. Only it’s not an earthquake.

“Every single village that we pass through, bar one, has been completely demolished. So every house, every building standing, any car has been demolished, and there’s just no sign of life, which is pretty devastating,” she said. 

The minister confirmed that the Christian villages have been left relatively unscathed by the bombing, but their populations have been “diminished”.

In the past, majority-Christian villages were involved in the South Lebanon Army, which sided with Israel. The majority Sunni and Shia villages have been struck. 

“The fact that I’m here, I’m able to see what has happened. But when UNIFIL moves out, you have a number of communities that are left here, and you have absolutely no ability to see what the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] is doing now.

“Where we are at the moment, you could say we’re surrounded by the IDF, they’ve put up new posts where UNIFIL would have been, or where the IDF, or where the Lebanese Armed Forces would have been,” she added. 

Rescuers working to clear debris from an Israeli strike on Beirut. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Lebanon and Gaza

The minister is of the view that the various towns and villages will struggle to be rebuilt because of the devastation.

Israeli forces have occupied areas near the Irish camp located close to the bombed out town of At Tiri in south Lebanon and at UNP 6-52 which is an outpost on the Blue Line which marks the contested Lebanon/Israel border.

There were widespread aerial bombing and artillery strikes across the area regularly through the week with active Hezbollah cells operating in the area also.  

Large towns such as Sidon, Tyre and the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, just a short distance from the Irish camp, have been hit by heavy bombing. Smaller villages and towns across the south have also suffered. It is understood some Christian villages have been spared, but Sunni and Shia villages have been carpet bombed in Israeli strikes. 

Thousands have been displaced; large numbers of people have been killed, not just in the south but in Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley.

During the visit, the minister is expected to meet President Joseph Aoun, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Youssef Rajji, and Minister of Justice Adel Nassar.

She will discuss with the Lebanese the failure by the country to bring the convicted murderer of Private Seán Rooney to justice. 

UNIFIL will end its mission in the new year and Ireland and the other countries will leave Lebanon. A prospective mission by the European Union is in the works, but it will be small in scale and amount to an advisory or trainee operation. 

An image of a bombed out village in South Lebanon between Naqoura and At Tiri.

Ireland has maintained a continuous peacekeeping presence in Lebanon since 1978 and remains one of UNIFIL’s longest-serving troop-contributing countries.

The mandate was not renewed after the US, following lobbying by Israel, threatened its veto power on the United Nations Security Council vote. 

McEntee said she believes the eyes of the world will not be on Lebanon after the withdrawal and the impact on the population will be devastating.

“I think for me, that’s the biggest challenge because what we’re seeing here is exactly what we’ve seen happen in Gaza when you have nobody on the ground to be able to monitor and to report back what’s happening, you have no idea what’s happening here, and we know that is the case in Gaza at the moment.

“What we do need to make sure is that we continue to have a presence to ensure that we can continue to, in whatever way possible, monitor, but to support the Lebanese people and the Lebanese Armed Forces, because this is going to continue to be a challenging environment for the people here,” she added.