IRELAND HAS ISSUED a formal rebuke of Israel after its troops fired in the direction of Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon this week.

The Irish troops, who are stationed in Lebanon on a UNIFIL peacekeeping mission and were on patrol with the Lebanese Armed Forces, were fired upon by Israeli troops on Thursday.

No-one was injured in the incident. 

On the direction of Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Simon Harris, a formal ‘demarche’ has been served on the Israeli Government via the UN, the Department of Foreign Affairs said today.

The demarche states that Ireland considers the incident in the Lebanese village of Yaroun “completely unacceptable in terms of the safety of peacekeepers and the execution of their mandated duties”.

“These concerns are held at the highest levels” of the Irish government and the Defence Forces, the rebuke added.

The Tánaiste, who described the incident as “reckless, intimidatory, totally unacceptable and a clear breach of the international rules surrounding peacekeeping”,was briefed yesterday by the new Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Rossa Mulcahy.

Harris paid tribute to “our personnel deployed with UNIFIL, who are operating in an increasingly volatile and tense environment”.

Today in Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed one person in the south of the country despite a six-month-old supposed ceasefire.

Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah militant.

The state-run National News Agency said a man was killed when an Israeli drone targeted his car as he was heading to pray at a mosque in Deir al-Zahrani, about 20 kilometres from the Israeli border.

Israel has continued to bomb Lebanon despite the 27 November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of open war.

The Israeli army said the strike killed a regional commander “of Hezbollah’s rocket array”.

With reporting form AFP