LAST UPDATE | 26 Oct 2023
TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said the safety of the 300 Irish troops in the Lebanon region is a “paramount concern”.
His comments come as Irish citizens living in Lebanon were urged last night to leave the country, which shares a border with Israel, and to cancel any plans to travel there.
Speaking to The Journal on the way into the EPP Summit in Brussels, Varadkar said while safety is a concern, the troops also have a mission to discharge over there.
“They know that, they know that when they volunteer for these missions that there is a degree of risk but of course their safety is going to be of paramount concern,” he said.
When asked if it is expected that they will be engaging in any gunfire, Varadkar said the short answer is no.
He said they are there as for a peace keeping mission, not a peace enforcement operation, and therefore wouldn’t be involved in any active combat, stating that UNFIL missions have particular terms and conditions on such matters.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said today that the safety of the 300 Irish troops in the Lebanon region is a “paramount concern”.
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) October 26, 2023
His comments come as Irish citizens living in the country were urged to leave last night. pic.twitter.com/PkbYIj0NOg
Meanwhile, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said this morning that the call for Irish people to leave Lebanon is due to fears that further conflict could erupt “suddenly” in the region.
Speaking to reporters this morning, the Tánaiste said: “There have been Irish people living and working in Lebanon for quite a long time and our basic advice is that we do believe it would be wise to consider leaving Lebanon.”
“We said that with great regret but there is potential for regional escalation and we can see an increase in activity in the northern border,” he said.
“While there are commercial options available, it is our considered advice that people should really think about taking those commercial routes that are currently available but may not be available if anything sudden happens.
We have no metric in terms of the timing of this and things can happen very quickly.
“We’ve seen that it’s a very volatile situation in the Middle East right now and so the precaution principle applies.”
Hamas killed around 1,400 people in Israel in its unprecedented attack launched on 7 October, while Israel has killed around 5,700 people in Gaza in the weeks since.
In that time, members of Hezbollah – a militant group based on Lebanon – have exchanged fire with Israeli troops across the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Lebanon has been experiencing major problems with electricity and fuel shortages, shortfalls in medical supplies, and a tumbling of its currency as well as restrictions on financial transactions and ATM withdrawals.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has warned Irish citizens in Lebanon to exercise extreme caution and – in the absence of an Irish embassy in Beirut – to register with the embassy in Cairo in Egypt.
With reporting from Christina Finn and Jane Matthews.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say